


Terms Of Submission

by nereidee (aurasama)



Series: Songs of Submission [1]
Category: Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Humiliation, M/M, Master/Servant, Non-Sexual Kink, Post-Game, Punishment, Riding Crops, Spanking, Wax Play, hinted child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-10 12:55:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4392704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurasama/pseuds/nereidee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the ruined ritual, two men are left virtually trapped in the collapsing remains of castle Brennenburg - Alexander, mad with grief, his one last hope of returning home destroyed, and Daniel, burdened by his guilt and furious at the man who had chosen to betray him to his death. They have little choice but to work together if they wish to survive, but feelings of mutual betrayal run deep...</p>
<p>Set after the events of the game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And my heart would forget it's made of glass

The room was cast in depressing gloom, the faint misty light trickling from the woods outside creating sharp reliefs of the furniture. On the desk there was one small candlestick, wax dripping down on the stacks of parchment underneath. The room serving as a temporary office was cluttered with overturned chairs and books splayed on the floor from the collapsed shelves, but it was one of the few rooms that had survived relatively unharmed from the Shadow's pursuit and had been easy enough to transform for emergency use. Most of the castle lay in complete shambles and clearing out even the main passageways had taken days.

Daniel stood facing the heavy wooden desk, his lips pursed into a tight line. He suspected Alexander kept the room as dark as possible just to spite him, as if he had not been nervous enough as it were. He took shallow breaths, trying to hide the tremor of his hands though it was quite unnecessary as the baron did not bother looking up from his work. His quill moved gracefully as he wrote line after line after line, appearing perfectly unconcerned that Daniel had been standing there for the past ten minutes in silence without so much as his presence being acknowledged. The baron had paid him very little notice ever since the failed ritual that had against all odds not claimed their lives, and it was becoming more unnerving with each passing hour. Daniel knew the man must be seething with fury, having lost both the Orb and his gateway home, but his impassive face betrayed no emotion. Though the man had not, against all his initial suspicions, thrown him into a prison cell to rot for the rest of his days, Daniel knew better than to be fooled by this feigned calm - there had been no negotiations, no agreements, no declaration of armistice whatsoever. Just this faux tranquillity that seemed to stretch on endlessly with both of them watching the other constantly like two beasts circling one another.

Alexander dipped the quill to the ink bottle once more and added what might have been his signature at the very bottom of the long piece of parchment. The smoking candle gave his skin an unnaturally waxy look and the brunette suppressed a shudder, remembering how the baron had looked that day, down in the Orb Chamber. Though he looked no different, now, from the way he had been when Daniel first met him, he knew what was truly hiding beneath that glamour and it did nothing to put his mind at ease.

The baron's eyes darted from left to right, his lips moving soundlessly as he went over what he had just finished writing. Daniel cleared his throat and Alexander slowly looked up from his work, features twisting in mock surprise. "Daniel. How good of you to come."

"You summoned me, _sir,_ " Daniel managed through gritted teeth.

"Ah, yes. It was very kind of you to grace me with your presence so swiftly."

Daniel snorted, making no attempt to hide his displeasure. "I would not have turned down your invitation at any price. You servants were quite persistent." It had taken all his willpower not to lose consciousness when those hideous creatures had appeared at his doorstep and all but dragged him through the hallways to their master's new office.

"I would have no need to send an escort were you to simply answer my calls, Daniel. It is very rude to ignore your host when he is speaking to you directly," Alexander reprimanded though his tone remained unchanged.

"You call that 'speaking'? Now that's in bad taste."

"What would you call it, then?"

"Intruding."

Alexander smiled at the scandalized look on the Englishman's face. He had been mortified to find the baron's voice in his head when he had been trekking through the collapsing castle, his very words sending shivers down his spine and causing him to break into cold sweat. Knowing what the man was capable of made him feel like he was being constantly watched and even his moments of rest were riddled with unease, making it close to impossible to relax anymore. The baron knew this all too well; his summons were too perfectly timed for Daniel to think otherwise. Always, always the baron called for him when he was beginning to calm down just enough to close his eyes and clear his mind. He knew there would be no rest for him as long as he was confined within these walls, and yet he could not see how he could hope to find a way out without the man setting his creations chasing after him.

_'Nervous, Daniel?'_

Alexander's voice came out of nowhere, sourceless and disembodied. Once upon a time he might have even been fascinated by such a curious ability, but now it only roused a wave of nausea at the pit of his stomach. He knew, oh how well he knew that there was no getting away from this... this abomination. The Shadow had pierced through the very defences of his mind with perfect ease, like a knife cutting into warm butter. If the man before him could read his thoughts and invade at leisure, his chances were close to non-existent.

_'I think you misunderstand me,'_ the elder's deep voice drawled again and Daniel closed his eyes in disgust. _'What you humans think of as 'mind reading' is nothing but a foolish superstition and has very little to do with my abilities. Your mind is not a book, Daniel. I cannot open and read it as I wish, I cannot pry it open and pick whichever piece of information that suits me best.'_

Swallowing down the nasty lump in his throat, Daniel asked, ", then what is it that you are capable of doing, exactly?"

Alexander relaxed in his chair, leaning back to take in the sight of his former apprentice standing as far away from him as possible. "I can sense your presence, tell exactly where you are each given moment."

The brunette scoffed. "You certainly did not seem to know where I was one week ago, when I was coming to kill you."

The elder shook his head, his eyes never leaving Daniel's. It made him feel as though he was balancing on the edge of a knife, the way every each one of his movements was being watched, calculated. "I did not. After you took the amnesia mixture I was unable to track you for quite some time. Your mind was in such state of chaos that there was hardly anything to find."

"In the light of that information, it appears drinking the potion was not such a big mistake after all."

Alexander chuckled. "You always had a flair for such amusing replies. One of your best assets, really, if you were to ask me. Alas, I did not call you here just for pleasurable company and delightful banter."

The Englishman crossed his arms across his chest and shrugged. Alexander had been doing this for days, calling him over on this and that excuse just to keep him on his toes. "What is that you want this time?"

The elder nodded towards the documents on his desk. "We have something of great importance to discuss. Your debt, Daniel," he added when the other did not catch on immediately.

Daniel's mouth felt very dry all of a sudden. "If it's money you want, I do have some savings."

"No, that's not what I meant. I do not need your earthly possessions."

"I have nothing else of value I could possibly offer you, Alexander."

The baron's lips curled into a cold, stiff smile. "That's where I think you will find yourself mistaken."

"I don't know what you are talking about."

"A promising young archaeologist such as yourself would be familiar with the Code of Hammurabi, wouldn't you?" Daniel felt sweat trickling down his back, making his dress shirt cling to his skin uncomfortably. There was something malicious in the baron's voice, something that made his skin crawl. "'If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out. If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.' You stole my one, last chance at returning home, Daniel. Am I not a righteous man to steal yours in return?"

"... and how did you think to accomplish that?" He fought to keep his voice even, though fury was making his head pound sickeningly.

The baron gathered the signed papers from the desk and held it out to him. "I think you'll find I have all the necessary preparations in order."

"What is that? An order to have me imprisoned by laws of your own making?" Daniel asked, his words dripping with poison. The baron's smile widened.

"No, Daniel. These are your terms of _submission._ "

"My what?" His voice rang loud and clear in the silence of the study room.

"You will need to sign your name over here,” the baron called, stressing each word and tapping the signature-less corner at the bottom of the document helpfully. Daniel got the impression he was speaking as if to a particularly slow person.

”You are delusional,” Daniel whispered, so overcome with anger that he could barely get the words out. He was certain he would soon lose what remained of his self-control and just strangle the man with his bare hands, never mind those monsters probably ripping him to pieces afterwards if he were to do so.

”Allow me to read out loud the main scripture for your convenience, Daniel. Why don't you have a seat? You can read the full contract for yourself right afterwards and confirm that everything is in order.”

He continued glowering at the elder, fists balled and chest heaving. Alexander did not flinch though the younger male looked very much like he was only seconds from brutally assaulting him. He merely gave him an exasperated look and said, ”, manners, Daniel. I asked you to _sit down._ ” His eyes slipped out of focus, just for a moment, and much to Daniel's dismay his body obeyed, taking a seat on the arm chair in front of Alexander's desk.

”That's better,” the baron said with an approving nod. Daniel could only manage to gape at him as he extracted an old-fashioned monocle from the topmost drawer, cleared his throat and began to read aloud.

_”'26th of August 1839 A.D., Brennenburg Castle, Prussia._

_I, Daniel of Mayfair from London, hereby declare with my own signature that I, able and willing, submit my self along with but not restricted to my free will, freedom, full attention and services to the baron of Brennenburg, Alexander. This includes my rights as a free man and I, of my own free will, vow to do and perform my duties as instructed and detailed hereinafter. This contract will reign until further notice and for as long as deemed necessary by the baron of Brennenburg.'_ What is the matter, Daniel? Are you unwell?"

Daniel was nothing short of stunned into silence, his mouth hanging agape. He was barely aware of his fingernails slowly digging into the cushioned arms of his seat, his hands shaking with barely contained anger now. "How dare you," he hissed. "How dare you!"

Alexander straightened in his chair, taking off the monocle. "Furthermore, I expect your full compliance at all times. I will not tolerate back-talking nor your outlandish lack of manners any longer."

"I will not become your servant!"

"Therefore," Alexander went on as though there had been no interruption, ", you need to be aware of your own position from now on. Be mindful of your words. I have overlooked your behaviour until now as a friend; it would be wise of you to keep in mind that acts of insolence will not go unpunished anymore."

"Will you stop spouting nonsense and listen to me for one moment?!" Daniel bellowed, springing to his feet with such haste that his chair toppled over.

"You need not shout, Daniel. I can hear you perfectly well."

"I will not agree to this! What you're suggesting is outrageous!"

Alexander observed him in silence, all signs of previous good humour gone. "Perhaps I did not make myself clear enough. It was not a suggestion, it was an _order._ "

"You are an even bigger fool than I thought if you believe you have any authority over me anymore," Daniel sneered. "Perhaps you still fancy yourself my teacher, my master? I thought you were above such sentimental delusions, Alexander."

_'You **will** sign this contract if it's the last thing you do, Daniel.'_ The brunette winced as though hit full force when the words echoed in his head. _'You are in no position to decline. Or would you rather take the place of the prisoners and be of use to me in other ways? It's your choice. I do not care either way.'_

Daniel paled at this suggestion. Although much of the rooms downstairs had sustained heavy damage, many were still operational enough although in need of some cleaning up. And, he thought with a shiver, Alexander knew more about torture than perhaps any other man, no, person, alive. Even if the whole castle had been reduced to nothing but dust he still would have found a way to make Daniel pay for his actions. Were he to choose the way of pain the man would always have an upper hand, he knew that much.

He could not bear to meet Alexander's expectant glare when he found his voice again. "What would you have me do?"

The baron turned the document around to face him, holding out a quill. "Kindly prove with your signature that you have given your full consent to what we just discussed."

Daniel hesitated, taking a tentative step forward with his hand hovering in mid-air. He felt like he was going to be sick.

_'Sign it,'_ Alexander urged his voice heavy and threatening in his head. The brunette took a deep breath and took the quill from the baron's hand, dipping it in the bottle. His hands shook and stray drops of ink fell on the desk, staining the handsome mahogany surface. His eyes quickly scanned the document before him, the knot in his innards tightening as he jumped from line to line. It was even worse when witnessed with his own eyes. It was all there, detailed clause by clause, closing the loopholes he had desperately been grasping for in the hopes of somehow talking his way out of this. He reluctantly placed the quill tip against the paper and looked up, trying not to flinch when Alexander's eyes met his. Their strange golden colour seemed to glow in the dark, like a pair of burning embers.

"Sign it, Daniel," he said quietly once more. The young man swallowed, hovering the quill this way and that undecidedly until he bent down and drew the letters of his name with painstaking care right next to Alexander's. There was no turning back now.

The baron pried the quill from his grip and Daniel started, snapping back to reality and realising he had been staring numbly at his own signature for quite a while. "That will do just fine," Alexander said, standing up.

"What now?" Daniel asked, unable to keep the apprehension in his voice from showing as he eyed the elder's movements warily.

"Let us begin with your manners, or rather, the lack of them" Alexander replied, slowly walking around his desk beside the Englishman. It was the first time in days they had been this close to one another, and Daniel did not like it.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" he asked cautiously. The question warranted him an icy glare.

"Precisely what I just said. You will talk to me respectfully and address me properly from now on, like a sensible servant should."

He straightened up, an angry sound escaping his mouth. "I have not been impolite with you once—"

"Daniel," the baron cut across sharply. "I am warning you. You must pay closer attention to how you speak to me."

"How the hell am I to know what you expect of me if—"

_Slap!_

Daniel was forced back a step by the suddenness of the blow. The slap had not been very harsh but given with just enough force to make his skin redden and sting unpleasantly. He was so taken aback he could only gape at the man in front of him, his face still the same calm mask as before though his voice was tight with anger.

"You will not use such improper language in front of me from now on. You will address me either as 'sir' or 'master'. Do you understand?"

”I... Yes, sir. I understand,” Daniel muttered reluctantly, looking down to stare at his toes.

”And _speak clearly_. I cannot stand mumbling.”

Daniel winced despite himself. He had only ever heard Alexander use that cold, commanding tone with the prisoners. ”I understand, sir. Forgive me.”

Alexander's face relaxed. ”Good. Now, another thing. As you may have already concluded,” the elder gave a sideways glance at Daniel's throbbing cheek, ”, improper behaviour will warrant a punishment if you do not heed my warnings. I am not unreasonable, however; you will be given a chance to correct your behaviour and learn for yourself.”

”Thank you, sir.”

Alexander pretended not to notice the sarcastic ring his voice still carried.

”I understand that you will undoubtedly require some time alone to fully appreciate your new situation. You may return to your room for tonight, but do not try anything foolhardy. I _will_ know if you try to escape, and I can guarantee you would not enjoy the consequences.”

Daniel simply nodded, turning to leave. His legs were turning into lead, heavy to carry, and he was certain his head would explode if he didn't get to lay down soon.

He was reaching for the door handle when Alexander's voice called out once again.

“And Daniel?”

The brunette turned around reluctantly, finding the baron looking out of the high windows with his back to Daniel. “Yes? Sir?”

“Rest well. You are going to need it.”

Alexander sighed when he heard the door behind him slam shut in a fit of temper and Daniel breaking into a run once out of the room.

* * *

He threw himself face first on the bed, taking deep breaths in a vain attempt to calm down. His thoughts had become a blur and he knew he was on the verge of losing himself to his anger once again. How dare that demon treat him so! He pounded the pillow with his fist, letting out a wail of anguish. He had never once in his life felt so humiliated, so worthless, so...

_You are good for nothing, you stupid boy!_

He flinched, almost expecting pain. Though his past was still partially shrouded in the mist left by the Amnesia drink, the voice of his father was one no mixture in the world could have ever erased from his mind permanently. He shivered, recalling the way his back had ached for days on end with the welts left by his father's belt, angry red marks from leather that had cut into his skin and made Hazel cry when she saw them.

He remembered Alexander's warning about the consequences of misbehaviour and smiled bitterly. What was he going to do, flog him? If the baron found even an inch of skin at his back not already endowed by scars left by his father's handicraft, he was free to taint them as he saw fit. Perhaps the man would simply finish what his father had started.

_You are a worthless, ungrateful child! A bloody disgrace!_

He closed his eyes, his abused skin stinging unpleasantly as a tear slipped past his defences, wetting his cheek. Why was he even surprised it had turned out this way? He had always known he was a bad child, unwanted, ungrateful. He had had it beaten into his subconscious too many times to do nothing but accept it. He could still hear his father's voice cursing his name, yelling that he deserved it as his palm made contact with his already raw skin. Even now, he had no strength left to defend himself and say that it was not so. Hazel. He had never minded taking the beatings for Hazel.

Daniel buried his face in the pillow, his eyes burning with tears of humiliation. There was nothing Alexander could do that had not already been done to him before. Perhaps, if he angered the man enough, Alexander would simply kill him and put him out of his misery for good. What good could come out of trying anymore when he had already failed at the one thing that mattered? There was no redemption for him, after all, no escape from the blood still staining his hands and condemning him.

_My poor Hazel,_ Daniel thought sadly, _at least you'll never have to see me like this._

* * *

When Daniel awoke it was with a start and a gasp like that of a man emerging from water. There was nothing to be seen but velvety darkness, despite his eyes being wide open. In his chest his heart hammered wildly, uncertain whether he was still dreaming or not. He hardly dared to draw a breath, fearing that the heavy weight on his chest would return and drag him back to that black pit that no light could breach.

He had not slept quite this poorly since the Shadow had withdrawn and taken the Orb with it; in his dreams a big dreadful something had been watching, watching from the darkness, quietly lurking and always invisible to the naked eye yet its presence heavy in his mind, slowing down his feet as though his body was made of lead when he desperately struggled to flee. From what and where to, he did not know. All he recalled was an indescribable yearn to run as far as his legs would carry him, if they would carry him. A constricting weight had seemed to push down against his lungs and rib cage, entangling itself around him as though tendrils of darkness, making it nigh impossible to breathe, and he had believed himself to be drowning. Slowly, he moved his fingers and sighed in relief when his fingertips brushed against the soft material of his quilt. Sitting up, he reached out to his left and pushed the curtains drawn around the four-poster bed aside.

It was not much brighter even with the curtains drawn, and Daniel assumed it must have still been very early. There was the slightest hint of blue in the horizon far beyond the trees, much too faint to do more than create bottomless abysses of the floor and the walls, and he decidedly averted his eyes from it. His head felt heavy from the lack of rest and he knew it would develop into a throbbing headache eventually.

He fumbled with the flint and tinder for a moment before managing to light the single remaining candle on the bedside table, illuminating the room with its warm glow. A quick glance at the somewhat damaged grandfather clock revealed it was still nearly two hours till dawn; too early to get up properly, but he felt no desire to lay back down again either. He paced around the room, not knowing what to do with himself at such an early hour. He could hardly leave guest room and wander the castle on a whim, nor did he have any desire to do such. Though he had not left his quarters after signing the so-called contract, he had little doubt Alexander had positioned his servants somewhere nearby to keep an eye on him in case he tried to make a run for it. And where could he possibly go so late at night, with the castle in such state of disorder and the passage to the main entrance still full of rubble? No, he thought gloomily, and extracted a black dressing gown from the wardrobe, there was no leaving this room until he was properly summoned.

Daniel found the room unpleasantly chilly despite the thick dressing gown. The fire in the fireplace had died out a long time ago, judging by how even the embers were no longer aglow, and whatever heat the fire had emanated had long since vanished thanks to the missing door. There was nothing left of it but hinges, blasted out of the way by either the Guardian or Alexander's servants in pursuit of him, leaving the doorway uncomfortably barren and vulnerable. The next room looked as though it had been hit by a hurricane and pieces of broken objects lay here and there. Daniel had not bothered cleaning up anything else except his bedroom, which now looked almost normal if one ignored the door.

He took a tentative peek at the next room and seemed to shrink in relief to find it deserted. Perhaps Alexander thought it did not serve the purpose to terrify him witless when he required Daniel as capable of hard labour as possible. This thought drew another shudder from the Englishman, this time more out of anxiety than the cold. He wished he could have utilised something as a makeshift door to avoid looking at the pitch black entry hall, but the original door was in splinters on the floor and nothing else was quite the appropriate size to suit the purpose. With a sigh he retreated into the bedroom, turning his back on the dark room and determinedly pushing it out of his mind.

He picked up the candle from the bedside table and set it down on the desk, careful to avoid dripping wax on the neatly stacked books and documents. He had brought very few personal belongings with him from England and even fewer had survived his stay on Brennenburg, and he was very particular about keeping them as unharmed as possible, at least. He flipped through the remains of his journal, which was little more than a collection of torn out notes these days. There were still pages missing, probably lost forever in inaccessible places somewhere in the castle, but he had no real interest in discovering their contents anymore. His mind was oddly stagnant even as he re-read the pages he'd already revisited plenty of times in the past days, each line coming to life in his memory but it roused no emotion anymore. It was almost as though he was seeing his past self through someone else's eyes, aware of his quill scribbling away on the paper yet blissfully numb to the horrifying things he had confessed to within those pages, and Daniel suspected some parts of who he'd once been had vanished for good upon drinking the potion.

He soon found himself facing a blank page and counted the remaining pages. The past Daniel had not filled more than half of the journal, he noted absent-mindedly and reached for the ink bottle, dipped the quill into the ink and placed the tip against the empty page. He was already being forced to carry on. Perhaps it was the time to continue filling the journal, too.

_'27th of August, 1839',_ he wrote.

_'Forgive me, for I have failed.'_

* * *

Breakfast had been tense. Alexander insisted they have their meals together, which made Daniel nervous and jumpy to the point where he kept dropping his utensils and spilling water on the table cloth constantly, but the baron didn't seem to notice or simply didn't care. As to where the meals came from, Daniel had no clue. He could only assume a passageway to one of the food storages on the upper levels had been cleared of rubble, for he could not complain about the quality of the meals and he had certainly not found anything edible during his previous adventures. The only thing that had suffered was the diversity of their meals, but that was to be expected. He suspected the servants did not have a great variety of ingredients at their disposal anymore, and he could not imagine they would receive any supplements from the nearby farms as things were.

With complete honesty, he couldn't imagine how the servants prepared the meals in the first place, but he did not care to linger on it too much.

Daniel had been quite taken aback to find the baron wearing slightly disheveled working clothes instead of his usual well-cared for outfits - he had anticipated to spend the day doing grunt work while the elder watched him, sitting comfortably in a corner shouting orders at him. When Alexander noticed his stare, he answered with a knowing smirk.

"This? You did not think I'd let you work all by yourself, did you?"

Daniel bit back the desire to reply he very much would have preferred that. "I simply did not expect you to participate, sir. Work such as this is most unbefitting for your position."

"Perhaps," he answered smoothly. "But I do think you should be placed under watchful eyes for the time being."

There was something off with the baron's outfit but he could not put a finger on it, not until he turned to look out of the tall windows and placed a hand on his waist. Daniel froze and felt the hairs at the back of his neck stand up; Alexander was wearing a thick leather belt instead of suspenders. The Englishman closed his eyes, feeling sick all of a sudden. His father had only ever worn a belt when he'd felt there was a lesson to be taught, and the sight of it had soon been enough to terrify both Daniel and Hazel witless. Sometimes he had made Daniel wear one so that he'd always have one at hand should he need it, and the scars running the length of Daniel's back said he had required one often enough. The brunette shuddered. When he opened his eyes he caught Alexander observing him, clearly watching for his reaction, and he wished he hadn't eaten anything.

He answered Daniel's unasked question with a curt nod. _'Take this as a fair warning. I will be keeping a close eye on you, Daniel.'_

Feeling utterly intimidated did nothing to improve his already sour mood.

* * *

The last he had seen of daylight had been before noon, and there hadn't been much of it. The sky had been dressed in steel gray clouds and soon thereafter rain had started to pound against the glass, harsh and unforgiving, and he hadn't been all that sorry to spend the day repairing the machinery downstairs where at least the chill pressing through the window panes could not reach him.

He had been surprised to find the elevator machine room mostly in one piece, but the same could not be said of the machinery itself. While he'd tried his hand at repairing the thing before, he soon found out he had barely scratched the surface of just how complex it was and just how much effort it would take to have it up and running again. His working clothes were stained with machine oil and dirt, shirt clinging to his skin with sweat in the heat emanating from the old coal burner. Alexander was careful to instruct every bit of his work, slowly shedding some light into how individual pieces of the machinery fit together to create a seamlessly working whole, and irritated though he was, Daniel could not help finding it more intriguing than he had originally suspected. His brow gleamed with sweat and his face was smudged with coal dust, but he had little time to mind such things.

"Daniel, release the pressure."

"Yes, sir."

"Daniel, unscrew these."

"Yes, sir."

"Daniel, replace the cog wheels."

"Of course, sir."

"Daniel, turn the valve again."

"I will, sir."

And so it went on, and Daniel was only too glad that his work provided him with enough distractions to forget the ever present ring of authority in Alexander's voice. Once or twice Daniel found him with his hands on his waist again, staring at this or that meter with his brows furrowed in concentration, thumbs hooked behind the belt. He said nothing, and turned back to his work to ignore the nervous burning in his stomach.

He eventually came to notice how sore his feet were and how his back had begun to ache dully, and he assumed it must already be close to nightfall. He was not unaccustomed to physical labour or being on his feet for long periods of time, but his sleep deprivation had taken its toll on him and Daniel began to fear he'd eventually fall asleep on his feet if he continued to rest poorly. Alexander had watched him like a vulture, constantly hovering over him and practically breathing down his neck as he worked. The baron had been polite enough towards him but Daniel had the fleeting impression he was trying to keep his once-friend now-servant as occupied as physically possible, ordering him a new task the very moment his hands were empty or when he managed to look a little too much like he'd fancy sitting down for a minute.

"I believe our work here is done for today," Alexander finally announced, watching the younger man mop his sweaty brow with his sleeve and make an even worse mess of his already stained face. Daniel eyed in him in disbelief, almost daring to think the man was joking.

"With due respect, sir, I am used to far longer days than this. I do not mind if you'd wish for me to continue still," he replied, choosing his words with care. The latter was an obvious lie but neither mentioned it. Neither his enjoyment nor his sincerity was part of the deal. If it does not hinder his willingness to do the work assigned to him and he minds his manners, Alexander had decided to turn a blind eye to what his real feelings were, or so the baron liked to tell himself when his resolve started slipping and he found himself full of doubt once again, but he never once said a word of it to Daniel. Instead he found himself saying, "your work in the past two hours has been exceedingly sloppy, and it will do us no good to carry on today", and Daniel's face flooded with colour at the insult though he remained silent.

They cleaned up their work station and returned the tools to their proper places in silence, extinguishing lights floor by floor as they finally ascended back to ground level. Alexander swore he heard the Englishman let out a barely audible sigh of relief as the elder turned his back on him to lock the door but he made no effort to mention it or showed any sign he heard it.

"We shall dine in one hour," he told Daniel as he faced him again. "Bathe and get changed." And with that, he left the Englishman standing alone in the quiet hall under the flickering torchlight.

* * *

No matter what he did and how much he scrubbed, his skin never seemed to be entirely clean these days. He now bathed almost daily if the castle's water supply allowed it, heating the water and preparing himself a hot bath as often as possible. Alexander insisted on it, and while it felt nothing short of luxurious to sink into the bathtub full of hot water after another exhausting day that left his body sore and his back throbbing, he couldn't think of it as anything but a waste of both time and water. He washed and washed yet the dirt clung to his skin like it had always been there, a persistent layer of oil and coal dust that seemed to thicken every day until his own skin tone became unrecognizable under the grime.

His fingertips were becoming red and raw from the effort of keeping his hands, at least, clean enough, and the burns from handling the coal stung unpleasantly as if ripped open every time he bathed, but it was tolerable. He was offered warm water, a change of clothes and more or less regular meals. That much was alright. He couldn't claim it wasn't more than he'd expected in these conditions. It was the baron he could have done without. Or rather, his words.

They were seemingly nothing more than small, harmless remarks to aid him in their work, but Daniel sensed the edge to the baron's words, careful, calculated, their sharpness intended to do nothing but hurt. Always that mock-fatherly guidance, the only half concealed sarcasm. Half the time Daniel felt as though the baron was treating him as someone slow of understanding. While infuriationg, he might have tolerated it if it weren't for the way Alexander treated even his smallest mishaps by pointing them out in excruciating detail, laying them out for him until he had the sense to feel properly ashamed and had no option but to beg him _please, teach me once again how to do it good and proper._ Throughout the endless, uncomfortable days Daniel somehow willed his face to reveal nothing, an expressionless and emotionless mask, which he found simple enough to conjure after a couple of tries. It reminded him of the face he used wear around any close acquaintances, keeping up the appearance of the happy, picturesque family they ought to have been. It's not as if he was unpracticed with this. He had spent more than enough time in his life pretending and taking up the task again seemed only natural after a while. A survival strategy.

And all the while Alexander watched him from the corner of his eye, quietly wondering how long this would hold up. The younger man had remained polite enough, that was true. He hadn't given him any real reason to scold him or correct his behaviour lately, but everytime their eyes met, often accidentally and very briefly and with them both quickly looking away each time it happened, the baron was more and more certain all he was doing was only suppressing the fire instead of extinguishing it. The Englishman was as flammable as the layer of coal dust covering them both or the embers in the coal burner, hot enough to go up in flames again in the matter of seconds if provoked enough. Just because there was no naked flame didn't mean he wasn't still quietly burning inside, just waiting for the right moment; he had already proved as much by going after Alexander when the elder had assumed he'd merely give up in the face of certain death. No, the man was dangerous no matter how subdued. There was no taking chances with him.

That night, Daniel was kept awake by the unmistakeable growls of a Gatherer stationed right behind his door.

The nights that followed were sleepless, Daniel too afraid to close his eyes in case he'd find the hideous thing keeping an eye on him right in his bedroom the next time he dared to look, or worse, fall asleep only to scream in his sleep and rouse the monster's interest enough for it to break right through the door. The lack of sleep, even worse than it was before, made him jittery and more prone to dropping things whenever the smallest sound frightened him. They had succeeded in repairing at least a part of the machinery but Daniel found no joy in this. The steam pushing through the pipes was enough to invite nightmares even while wide awake, the small clouds of vapour distorting his view and making the shadows come alive with the same terrors that had robbed him of the comfort of sleep, the only one remaining sanctuary he'd been counting on anymore.

* * *

Daniel didn't know how he'd managed to keep himself on his feet in the past days, much less working with his head bent down in concentration. He had begun to fear returning to his quarters for yet another night of sitting upright on the bed with his ears strained for the slightest creak and rustle, getting back up on his feet when the risk of his eyes closing on their own became too great. The once empty pages in the journal had begun to fill with notes that were nothing short of incomprehensible; the tremour of his hands had significantly worsened, making holding any tools or utensils a task that required real effort now. Try as he might, this detail had not escaped Alexander's notice, either.

"What on earth do you think you are you doing, Daniel?" the baron asked with apparent exasperation after the younger's hands slipped for the third time that day, tools and machine parts falling on the floor with loud clatter. The brunette winced, the noise almost painfully loud to his oversensitive ears.

"Forgive me, sir," he hastened to say, already fumbling to pick up everything he'd dropped. "I'm sorry. I will be more careful from now on."

Alexander's eyes lingered on him but he said nothing, finally returning to his own work with a frown on his face. Daniel sighed when the baron was no longer within earshot. He had barely been able to keep his breakfast down long enough to return to his living quarters that morning and he still didn't feel entirely normal, if his condition lately could even be called that.

He paused to wipe sweat from his brow, observing the part he'd been working on since the day before. They were close to getting the elevator machinery running again - the elevator itself still required work and even after that it would be a much more rickety ride than before the collapse, but it would be an improvement. Or at least that was what Alexander thought. Daniel feared the day they would once again set foot in the levels below, having no wish to ever revisit the place of his nightmares.

The air down in the prisons would be even more repugnant now, after the exits being blocked up for so long. He remembered what the morgue had looked like the last time he'd seen it and even the memory of that stench made his stomach turn upside down. Acid burned in his throat and he fought back the urge to gag. _No, you must concentrate,_ he told himself with all the firmness he could muster. If only he wasn't so tired, so utterly, unbearably tired. He felt the world shifting in and out focus, one moment blurry, another clear as daylight, then nearly blacking out again, and sooner than he knew it his knees had bucked and given in just for a moment and he slipped, losing his balance and grasping at every lever, knob and valve on his way down towards the floor.

The world seemed lost in chaos when he gathered his senses again. Steam, everywhere and too much of it, was pushing out from pipes and joints and all the wrong places, the pressure too high for the machinery to handle. The entire castle seemed to shake violently as if struck by an earthquake, and Daniel feared it would collapse upon them eventually. Bolts became loose in places and Alexander barely made it out of the way in time when a large piece of metal came undone and launched towards the opposite wall, ricocheting across the room and knocking over a stack of barrels.

Daniel scrambled back to his feet, only to be unceremoniously brushed aside by Alexander who hastened to re-adjust the levers and valves, eventually managing to slow down the flow of steam back to tolerable levels. The machinery creaked and clanked and assumed its normal, steady huffing and puffing after one last blood-chilling screech from the cog wheels, and silence fell in the room.

"Daniel." The baron slowly turned around to face him, his voice as calm and controlled as if nothing had happened. "Have I not told you to pay more attention to your actions?"

He swallowed. "You have, sir."

"Have I not explained to you clearly enough how delicate the components of this machine are?"

"You have, sir."

"And did you not just promise me a little earlier that you would be more careful in your work from now on?"

His face coloured in embarrassment at that and he fought hard not to look down and break the eye contact. "I did, sir."

"Is that so," Alexander continued, sounding almost uninterested, distractedly fingering one of the valves and giving it a spin. "In that case, I assume you would be most keen to explain why are you still hindering our work with your decided and _embarrassing_ clumsiness even after vowing not to do so?"

"Sir, I swear it was not intentional," Daniel stammered.

"Not intentional. I see," Alexander replied, quite literally looking at him down his nose. "I'm disappointed, Daniel. After all the hard work we have been putting into this, you do not even have the sense to apologize."

He realised he was shaking, and he couldn't keep his voice entirely steady when he spoke. "I did not do it on purpose. I was just so tired, I could hardly—"

"Making blatant excuses instead of admitting your mistakes?" Alexander cut across sharply. "I did not anticipate I would have to lecture you in basic manners as well, but it would seem I was mistaken on this account. Didn't your parents teach you anything?"

"Keep my family out of this," Daniel snapped.

Alexander raised an eyebrow quizzically. "And you think you have any right to speak like that after the incompetence you've shown today?"

"You think _you_ have any right to speak of my family like that?"

"Be quiet, Daniel," Alexander almost snarled, barely keeping his temper in check.

_"I will not!"_ He was so angry, so exhausted that he shook all over and his hands curled into fists in an attempt to steady his arms, but it made no noticeable difference. He took another step towards the baron, eyes fixated on him as his blood boiled. Enough was enough. "I've had it with you and your rules," he barked, uttering each word more loudly than the other. "Your constant ordering around, _your_ lack of respect, your endless 'do this, Daniel's and 'don't do that, Daniel's, all of it! I will hear it no more!"

The baron quickly closed the distance between them and slapped him harshly across the face. His voice was equally angry when he spoke. "I'm warning you, Daniel. I will not tolerate your disrespectful tone—"

"And I will not tolerate yours!" Daniel was now positively bellowing, his face burning red under the grime and eyes wide, wild and mad. "I wish you had killed me when you still had the chance, so I wouldn't have to suffer this humiliation!" And with that, he spat on Alexander's face.

The baron stood completely still, the look of utter disbelief vanishing quickly until his face was that same calm mask he wore so often. His eyes narrowed ever so slightly as they bore into the Englishman's with spite. Slowly, he extracted a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped his face clean before tossing it aside with a quick swish of his hand. Despite his anger Daniel took an instinctive step back, the elder's feigned calm unnerving him. He had seen him wear that face more times than he cared to remember. It had once awed him when he'd not personally been the target, the source of that calculating fury where every little sign spelled 'murder'. And suddenly the baron was behind him, and he had lost his one chance to get out.

“You have made your last mistake,” Alexander growled between gritted teeth, too furious to control himself anymore. The brunette yelped as long, thin fingers tightened in his hair and yanked his head back, the baron's grip much stronger than he had anticipated. _'Get on your knees. Now!'_

Daniel hastened to obey, his vision blurring with the sudden throbbing pain that followed Alexander's words and made his eyes water. Once kneeling on the cold stone floor fingers withdrew from his hair, only to unceremoniously grab the collar of his shirt next. A loud tearing sound followed and cool air pressed against the bare skin of his back – Alexander had cut open his shirt. Daniel heard a strange swishing sound and the crack of leather, and gathered that he must have removed the belt from his waist. Hands came to push down the remains of his shirt but came to an abrupt halt as soon as they made contact with his skin, pausing just about where his scars started.

Alexander froze, taking in the criss-crossing map of faint lines that covered nearly the whole of the Englishman's back. Some of the marks were fainter, some darker, clearly inflicted with enough force to break open his skin, struck repeatedly and deep enough to leave him carrying a permanent reminder of transpired events. Slowly, he traced Daniel's scars with his fingertips, following the small curve of his shoulder blade towards the faint crevasse of his spine. Daniel let out a shuddering sigh, fearing what would come next. The anticipation of a strike he knew was coming was far worse than the actual strike itself, and he hoped the baron would just get on with it.

“Who did this to you?” the elder finally asked in a quiet voice. He placed his palm over one of the largest scars, almost half an inch wide and visibly darker than the rest of the skin around it. Daniel stiffened, his posture rigid as he suddenly recalled how the belt had struck with a blinding flash of pain that had cleaved such a deep, bleeding wedge into his skin. He could still hear the resounding crack it emitted, frighteningly loud in his ears. A shudder ran through him, making him tremble from head to toe like a child caught in wrong-doing.

Daniel swallowed, closing his eyes and trying to suppress the memory the best he could. He could not afford for those feelings to surface now, not when he had determinedly pushed them off his mind for years and years. “My father,“ he answered, surprised to hear his voice remained perfectly even, if a little high-pitched. “He... was always a quick-tempered man.”

A long silence followed his words, Alexander's warm hand still lingering against his skin. He could hear Daniel inhale sharply, his breathing much shallower than normally. He seemed unable to stop shivering, and something told Alexander it was not from the cold. He could almost hear a certain rhythm in Daniel's erratic breathing, like the soft whistling of wind at night through draughty window panes, and he soon realised the younger male was muttering something to himself. Trembling, he caressed his bare arms with his hands, as if trying to warm himself up. “Filthy, disobedient, idiot child,” he whispered to himself, his voice so low and breathless that his words were nigh inaudible. “Look at what you've brought upon yourself.”

Alexander could barely look at him, the way his shoulders were shaking and his head bent as though in surrender. Like a child cowering in front of a parent, he thought. He had the impression he was prying on something private, something that should have remained untouched and unaddressed, hidden away where it could only be undone by time and old age. Slowly, he got back on his feet.

"Get up, Daniel," he called softly and the brunette started, shaken out of his reverie. Turning around, Daniel saw him place the belt on the nearest desk and out of reach.

"Sir?" he asked uncertainly, rising from the floor.

"I changed my mind," the baron answered shortly. "Take down your trousers and bend down with your elbows on the table."

"Excuse me?"

"Do not make me repeat myself, Daniel."

Dumbfounded, the Englishman started slowly unfastening his trousers with shaking hands. He was deeply embarrassed and apprehensive of what he suspected was coming next, but more than that, Alexander's sudden change of heart had stunned him into silence. To his credit, the baron looked away when he pushed his trousers and undergarments past his thighs, patiently waiting until he was ready and leaning against the desk. He could not bear to look at the elder, the remains of his ruined shirt now bundled up on the floor and nothing to cover his naked form with anymore.

”It will hurt, won't it?” Daniel breathed. He knew how stupid, how childish the question must have sounded, given his deeds and the suffering he had personally caused, but the words had left his mouth before he could stop himself. He half expected Alexander to laugh, but he did not even hear a chuckle.

”Of course it will. This is a punishment, after all.” His entire form stiffened when Alexander came to stand behind him, expecting the worst, until something heavy and soft was laid over his bare shoulders and back. ”Wait. Put this on before we proceed.”

It was velvet, the same deep burgundy colour of the wine stored in the refinery downstairs, and Daniel realised the baron had given him his overcoat. It was luxuriously soft and still warm with Alexander's lingering body heat, and the Englishman asked no questions as he pushed his arms through the sleeves before reclaiming his position against the desk.

”That's better,” Alexander complimented. The brunette stiffened again as he pushed the hem of the overcoat higher, revealing his bottom. ”Now, legs apart and bottom out – yes, just like that. Very good.”

Daniel swallowed once, loudly, gathering up his courage. ”How many, sir?”

”Ten good ones, Daniel. Count them for me, would you kindly?”

The brunette nodded stiffly, his head bent down. His breathing was growing more and more erratic again, the disconnected sound of it almost obscenely loud in the quiet room.

”And one more thing, Daniel.”

”Yes, sir?” He sounded breathless even to his own ears.

Alexander placed a hand on his shoulder, grasping it once, firmly. ”Remember to breathe. As you inhale, you receive. As you exhale, you let go.”

He made a small, confused noise but did not dare ask any more questions. Truth to be told he wasn't sure what Alexander meant but he didn't think this was the time or place to question it. Cryptic answers, speaking in riddles, it was nothing new with this man.

_Slap!_ He had tried to brace himself but the first swat still came out of nowhere, making his body jolt forwards against the desk. "One," he breathed. _Slap!_ His fists curled into tight balls, knuckles white and nails cutting into his palms. The second swat had landed almost precisely in the same spot as the first and just as harshly, making his eyes water from the pain. "T-two." _Slap!_ The third strike took him by surprise, arriving much faster than he had anticipated, drawing a low whine from his mouth. He was panting so heavily that forming the word 'three' took some effort, and even then it came out quivery, unclear.

"Give it some time, Daniel," Alexander's voice advised from behind him, firmly but not unkindly. Daniel bit into his bottom lip, visage flushing with humiliation. Everything else, everything else would still be tolerable if he could but keep silent! He had vowed not to make a sound, to not give Alexander that satisfaction but he had not been able to manage even that. The thought made him feel so utterly defeated that his eyes were beginning to sting, and he realised his eyes were brimming with tears.

”I can take it,” he managed finally with a strained voice. ”Carry on.”

Alexander surveyed him for a moment, noticing how his legs tensed and his shoulders became rigid, but he lifted his hand and delivered the next swat without a hint of hesitation. _Slap!_ ”F-four,” Daniel stammered, hating himself all the more for letting his weakness surface once again.

The elder paused, letting his hand drop. ”Daniel, what did I tell you before?”

The brunette flinched and he bowed his head, forcing his eyes shut. As little as he cared about what Alexander's opinion on him was anymore, being scolded by the man was just too much.

_What did I just tell you, you idiot boy!_

”I am not a bad child,” he muttered between gritted teeth and willed himself to believe it, though he'd never had the courage to stand up and say it out loud in front of anyone. Alexander frowned, uncertain whether he had simply heard wrong.

”Daniel?”

”You told me to give it some time, sir.”

”No, before that.”

”... You told me to breathe.”

”Precisely,” he complimented. ”Breathe in, receive. Breathe out, and let go. Try to keep this in mind as we continue, won't you?”

Daniel frowned. ”Receive and let go?”

”Yes, Daniel. Now, prepare yourself. We must proceed.”

He took a deep breath and positioned himself with his arms on the table. When Alexander asked if he was ready he said he was, though he was still just as confused as he had been before, and when the next swat landed on his already sore bottom he stammered so much could hardly get the word out. “Five,” he finally managed breathlessly, and his chest heaved with the effort of trying to keep breathing evenly. It was frustrating, almost as if he was constantly off beat…

His eyes snapped open with sudden recognition.

Yes. There had been an occasion like this, long ago. He remembered the knee pushed under his stomach, uncomfortable and holding him in place as he stared at the floor. He remembered crying. The strangled noises coming from his mouth had not eased his erratic breathing and to add to his panic, he’d believed himself to be suffocating between the lashes. That is, until he’d had the sense to control his sobs just enough to cry out with each strike. It had done nothing to improve his father’s foul mood, but at least Daniel had been able to breathe properly, and nothing he did would have ever tricked him out of the punishment anyway. His father had never had enough kindness to count his strikes. He continued until he judged it to be enough, or when holding the belt was starting to hurt his palm, and all Daniel did was wait it out the best he could.

_Breathe in,_ he told himself and inhaled, bracing himself while anticipating the next swat. _Don’t try to hold it back._ Alexander’s palm made contact with his skin again but this time he was ready for it, letting his body jolt forwards and the oxygen push out of his lungs as he exhaled loudly. “Six.”

_Slap!_ The pain washed over him in waves with each strike, his skin already unbearably sore but he forced it out of his mind, hanging onto it just long enough to let it nearly numb him and then releasing it with a loud gasp as he emptied his lungs once more. The sensation left him strangely light-headed and his words became a blur, but it hardly mattered. As long as he remembered to breathe, nothing else mattered. "Seven." _Slap!_ He could feel the pain crawl all the way up his spine, felt it as a persistant sting in his eyes, and when he breathed out again to form an incoherent 'eight', he realised his face was suddenly very wet and that a stream was running down his cheeks, dripping down his chin on the table.

He thought he might have heard Alexander say something that very much sounded like praise but the words were distant, meaningless, and he simply inhaled deeply again, steadying himself. _Slap!_ "Nine," he gasped automatically, feeling no urge whatsoever to stem the flow of fresh tears pouring from his eyes. The mere thought that Alexander would praise him, or, in fact, say anything at all that wasn't a threat or a curse to him under present conditions was ludicrous. Another deep breath and _slap!_ and he lunged forwards obediently, exhaling loudly and gasping as if out of breath. "T-ten," he stammered, hands balling into fists again as he steeled himself for the next swat.

"Very good, Daniel," came Alexander's booming voice out of nowhere and Daniel blinked, his vision still blurry with tears. He stared down at the table, frowning in sudden confusion. Something about the word 'ten' stirred something vaguely familiar his memory... and he suddenly recalled what they had agreed on previously. There would be no next swat.

His arms shook, and he wasn't sure if it was from the cold or from holding himself still in the same position for so long. His bottom ached, as was to be expected, but the same dull, throbbing soreness seemed to have spread out into his limbs as well, making his arms feel too weak to support him and his legs feel like he was going to lose his balance any given moment. Then Alexander reached out to touch his shoulder, and Daniel jolted as if struck again.

"It's alright, Daniel," the baron said softly, removing his hand. "It's alright. You may get up now if you wish."

"... Oh," was all he managed. His mind felt oddly empty at the moment. He slowly pushed himself up, testing and stretching his legs for a while before he dared to reach down and pull his trousers back up, keeping his back firmly turned towards Alexander. He fidgeted with the velvet jacket for some time, not quite knowing what to do with himself. Should he return it? He didn't feel exactly comfortable with the idea of being dressed in the baron's clothes like some grotesque life-sized mannequin... But he'd have nothing to wear if he gave it back, nothing to shield himself with from the hot steam.

"It's alright. You may wear it back to your quarters," Alexander said, guessing what was on his mind. The Englishman nodded, his expression remaining completely blank. The sweat on his skin was starting to dry and he felt chilly despite the warmth emanating from the pipes. He made for where his tools had fallen before, picking them up without a word and trying to remember what he'd been doing earlier, but it felt impossible to cut through the thick haze in his head. Even Alexander's voice seemed to be coming from some far off place, so distant and harmless that he might as well have been a figment of his imagination entirely.

"Daniel?" He only vaguely registered that someone was talking to him. "You are dismissed for today."

He nodded again and let the tools slip from his hands, barely registering the noise they made upon dropping on the floor. His current behaviour was much more disquieting than his earlier loss of temper - Alexander had rather expected him to at least continue yelling and protesting if nothing else. The baron grabbed his shoulders, turning him around to face him as gently as possible and asked, ", are you listening to me, Daniel?"

That seemed to snap him out of his reverie. His eyes widened as if recognizing the man in front of him for the first time and he slapped Alexander's hands away, his expression suddenly turning hostile.

_"Don't,"_ he hissed, side-stepping out of his reach. His face was red and blotchy, the cheek where Alexander had struck him earlier slightly puffier than the other. "Don't you ever touch me again... _sir,"_ he added between gritted teeth.

Alexander knew he should have reacted somehow, should have reprimanded him immediately and stopped him from leaving, but instead he stood by foolishly as Daniel fled from the room without a backwards glance, the baron staring after him in silence as though paralyzed.

* * *

Later that night Daniel found a glass jar on his writing desk. He had spent the remaining daylight hours holed up in the library, all ears in case one of the servants came looking for him, knowing there was a chance the baron might come after him if he were to return to his own living quarters immediately. He recognized Alexander’s handwriting on the jar even in the dim lighting of the room, and was half-tempted to toss the thing into the fireplace without a second thought. He picked it up gingerly and examined the container with a frown on his face. On closer inspection it turned out to be an ointment of sorts, apparently one of the baron’s own concoctions. He uncorked the container and gave its contents a careful sniff. The scent was surprisingly mild, barely detectable at all. It smelled of herbs that roused an odd sense of familiarity in him, and of something sweet, a flower, perhaps, possibly grown by Alexander himself. He remembered one rainy afternoon in particular, during which they had once enjoyed tea in the parlour of his study rooms as the baron had talked in depth of his discoveries in botany and Daniel had listened, perched on the edge of his seat, like an awed schoolboy.

He shook his head vigorously. That memory brought him no pleasure, nothing related to the baron did anymore. He carefully reached inside the bottle and scooped a small amount of the ointment on his fingertip. It felt cool against his skin and after a moment's consideration he drew back his sleeve, slowly spreading the paste on one of the many healing burns on his arm. Daniel sighed, the cooling sensation immediately dulling the throbbing pain, and he suddenly realised what the ointment was for. Embarrassed, he glanced at the doorway, making sure the door truly was closed, before unfastening his trousers again and forcing his undergarments down to his knees along with them. He dabbed the salve onto his reddened skin little by little, still suspicious whether it was actually harmful and if he'd have to wash it off hastily, but all his doubts died quickly when the pain started ebbing away.

Daniel changed into his nightclothes right afterwards, tossing what remained of his working clothes into a careless bundle on the chair, Alexander's coat laid out on top. He knew he should have bathed, should have tried to scrub his skin clean of the sweat and dust, but every bone in his body seemed to be protesting and he laid down on the bed face down, exhaustion washing over him. He realised he hadn't been summoned to dinner at all and vaguely wondered if that was just another part of his punishment or if Alexander had deduced that Daniel couldn't stand the sight of him right now and had decided to leave him alone for the time being. He somehow doubted it was the latter. He saw no reason why the baron would turn down a chance to further humiliate him, unless it was to give him a false sense of security while preparing for something worse. _Well, I'd like to see him try,_ Daniel thought darkly and dived under the bed covers. He was asleep within minutes.

Couple of hours later he woke up to the sound of screaming, a horrible screech like that of an animal wounded and in terrible agony, and it took him a moment to realise the sound was coming from his own mouth. He sat up shivering and panting and clasped his hands over his mouth, his breathing coming in shallow gasps. The bed room door flew open with a loud _bang_ and Daniel shouted again, attempting to back away only to remember that he was already to leaning against headboard. Hands came out of nowhere in the darkness and reached for his arms and Daniel trashed wildly, trying to push the intruder away and buy enough time to get out of the room, when Alexander's voice cut through his yells.

"Daniel! Daniel, it's me," he called loudly, almost having to shout to be heard over Daniel's cries. Alexander grasped at his shoulders and shook him as gently as he could, and the younger man halted, his resisting arms going limp almost immediately. The only sounds in the room were his gasps until he finally found his voice again.

"Alexander?" he rasped, his hoarse voice sounding confused, frightened.

"Yes, Daniel," the baron answered, letting go of him. "Wait just for a moment. I think we need some light in this room."

Daniel could barely make out his outlines in the dark but apparently the elder had no trouble locating what he needed. He opened the desk drawer and fumbled with something until he managed to light up the candles on the small bedside table, the sudden brightness making Daniel's eyes water. "Yes, I think this is much better," he muttered, closing the drawer before sitting beside Daniel. He tried to avoid looking into the baron's eyes but Alexander touched his chin, tilting his head back with two fingers, and he had no choice but to face him. "You were shouting for a long time, Daniel. What happened?"

The brunette swallowed, hesitating. "I... I had a bad dream, that's all," he finally said, knowing full well it wouldn't be enough.

Alexander considered him in silence for a few moments. "So your nightmares still did not yield when the Shadow disappeared."

"No. They simply changed form."

"Changed form?"

Daniel smiled bitterly, shaking his head. "It's not the Shadow that plagues me anymore. I hear them, I see them every night. The prisoners. That little girl." He paused, staring at his hands resting on his lap. "My father," he added quietly. The air in the room felt heavy and Daniel slumped back against the headboard with a sigh. That was one thing he certainly did not want to talk about, least of all to someone like the baron.

Alexander nodded slowly. The first two needed no explaining. He remembered all too well how the rituals had irreparably changed the younger man, turned him into something neither of them recognised. Seeing what he had become pained Alexander everyday; it was a blame he could not change or escape from regardless of how much he may have wanted it. But the last one was different. It was something more private, more personal than the rest, something which he hadn't even known existed until he'd personally seen the marks it had left in the Englishman.

"Daniel," Alexander said softly, trying his best to approach the subject with care. "I know what I saw today was not something you would have wished to share with me, had it been up to you to decide. For that, I apologize."

Daniel said nothing, staring vacantly at the window. It was still pitch black outside, much too dark to truly see anything. "I'm not a bad child," he whispered, the words coming out strained. Silently, at a loss for what to say, Alexander reached out and took his hand between both of his own, squeezing it gently. Daniel flinched at the touch and nearly withdrew his hand, but after a while he returned the squeeze tentatively. They sat like that for a long time, looking away from one another.

"I had to do it for Hazel, you know," Daniel spoke up finally and Alexander turned, simply looking at him without interrupting. "My little sister, that is. I couldn't let her come to harm, so I took the beatings for her, too. Our father, he... he was easily angered even by the smallest of things. Especially if he had been drinking. She was so scared of him when he was like that."

Alexander grasped his hand tighter, signaling him that he was listening.

The younger man gave a shuddering sigh. "What else was I supposed to do? I had to protect her."

"There was nothing more you could have done," Alexander said kindly. Daniel shook his head.

"Was there?" he asked, and he looked more tired than he ever had before. "I'm not so sure anymore."

The baron looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time in weeks, taking in his pallid face, the dark circles that made his eyes appear hollow and bottomless. His chaffed lips. His cheek bones had become more prominent than they had been before, his fingers borderlining on bony. "You have lost even more weight recently," Alexander noted. "You have been eating, have you not?"

"Lately, I haven't been able to keep the food down," Daniel admitted with a shrug.

"And have you been able to sleep well?" Alexander asked, though he thought he already knew the answer.

"No. What with the nightmares and that... _thing,"_ he said, wincing. "That creature you ordered to keep watch outside the guest room at night..."

Alexander gaped at him, processing what he had said. "Daniel," he began. "I did place a servant to keep an eye on your door before, that I do not deny, but it has been days since there was anything there. Too few survived the Shadow and I have recently needed every single one of them to patrol on the roads leading to the village. I do not have any to spare to stand watch outside your door exclusively."

"What?" Daniel exclaimed, his eyes widening. "But I heard... I was certain I heard them! I heard growling! I heard... I heard things." It sounded lame even to his own ears.

"When was the last time you consumed laudanum?" the baron interrupted his babbling. Daniel looked confused, shaking his head slowly to indicate he was not following. "The amount of laudanum you were taking before was more than enough to cause one to go through withdrawal. You have been having hallucinations, Daniel."

He stared at the baron in disbelief, waiting to see if his expression would betray a hint of deceit, but something at the back of his mind said the man was telling him the truth. With a groan he buried his face in his hands, raking his fingers through his hair. "It was all in my head, all this time?"

"You must have been exhausted as of late," Alexander said, patting his hand. "I would not blame you for not being able to tell the difference."

"I did not have the courage to open the door and see for myself," Daniel admitted with a sigh, eventually lowering his hands.

"Would you be able to sleep were I to show you, then?"

The Englishman hesitated, eyes drifting between Alexander and the door, and slowly, he got up from the bed. He walked with him to the door, carefully scanning the vast hall with his own eyes until he finally accepted that it was, indeed, empty of creatures both living and dead apart from himself and the baron. He sighed, a wave of relief he had not experienced in weeks washing over him.

"Do you believe me now?" Alexander asked.

"Perhaps I will sleep a bit more soundly, now," he said with a noncommittal shrug. "But..."

"But?"

"I still do not trust you."

Alexander met his eyes properly for the first time in weeks, and he sounded a thousand years old when he finally spoke.

"I know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I first started working on this fic in the fall of 2013, purely on a whim with very little plans about how to proceed or without much previous experience on working with longer fics, and originally I gave up on this story after it collapsed under the pressure of real life and my total lack of plans and schedules. This story means a lot to me, however, and there wasn't a single week when the thought of abandoning the fic didn't bother me - I've abandoned fruitless projects before and none of them has haunted me like this one, so after much consideration and planning, I decided to go back to it. And lo, here it is finally, after months of planning and rewriting! I had originally planned this fic to have a) shorter chapters and b) span some seven chapters in total, and the course of the story was quite different back then. Now, I have established that longer chapters and fewer updates work better for my purposes (and suit my writing style/life situation far better).
> 
> When I went back to this fic, I had planned to release it as a long oneshot, but there just seemed to be more material the more time I spent planning it, and the characters had a lot more to say than I had thought before. The storyline, the ending, and the characters' relationship has changed dramatically from what it was when I started. The way I see both Daniel and Alexander has evolved a lot in the past two years. Right now, 80% of the fic is written and finished, so I can promise with utter sureness that this project will not be abandoned to die again. A lot has happened since this story first saw the light of the day and I've even moved countries meanwhile, so it feels pretty awesome to think the characters have travelled with me such a long way. In case there is anyone out there reading this story and perhaps happy to see it back, thank you ever so much and I hope you stick around for the rest!
> 
> Chapter two will be released in mid-August, on week 34, and chapter three on week 38!


	2. A bloodless heart still beating

Alexander stood facing the tall windows in his private quarters. The glow from the fire crackling merrily in the fireplace illuminated from the window panes, filling the room with its warm light, making it nigh impossible to make out any shape or movement in the darkness of the vast woodlands below. The baron stole a fleeting glance at his own pallid reflection and sighed, going back to pacing around the room.

He was unusually restless. He had lied down on the bed, rolled from side to side in discomfort for quarter of an hour before finally accepting that there would be no sleep tonight. He felt the burden of the past weeks pressing down on him more heavily than before, and the persistent voice nagging at the back of his mind knew why; it seldom fell quiet anymore these days, always seeking a niche from which to creep back on him and destroy whatever remained of his crumbling resolve. He thought of Daniel’s tired, thin face, of the deep, dark shadows beneath his eyes and of his weakened, much too slender hands for a grown man, and his stomach lurched unpleasantly as guilt washed over him again. This was not what he’d wanted.

“What am I to do, my love?” he sighed out loud, coming to a halt in front of the fireplace. “I fear I may have done more damage today than he can bear.”

The map of scars on Daniel’s skin had been large enough to cover nearly the entire expanse of his back, altogether too numerous for a man so young. Alexander was not unaccustomed to seeing scars or injuries; he himself had been the cause of more than enough over the long, countless years to result in a certain level of indifference, but this fresh recollection felt like something indecent, and he did not know what to make of it. Everything about Daniel puzzled him these days. He had done what no one else during his long exile had not managed, and had proven everything about Alexander’s meticulous research both right and wrong to such extent that the baron would have been impressed if it had not come with such fatal results. As careful as he’d been, as deep as his grim knowledge ran over the course of centuries, as desperately far as he’d gone in his search for an escape from this hellhole of a world, it had only taken this one young man to shatter his most carefully folded plans, and take his one last hope of returning home with him.

For this, Alexander had been beyond grieving, beyond anger. There were no words left to describe the hopelessness he now inhabited, and for weeks, that hopelessness had been his only hold to what remained of his sanity. Perhaps it had been grief driven by petty desire for revenge that had pushed him this far when there was no other reason left for his endeavours, a desire that had now, he understood with another pang of guilt, led him to taking out his sorrow on the very same man he’d already attempted to drag through hell and back again, all for personal gain. For all his utter surety that he alone knew the very extent of the human psyche and just how far and how delicately its boundaries could be tested and pushed without breaking it, he’d failed to understand the most vital conclusion of his research – that even the most timid creature, in times of desperate need, could and would have the strength to fight back. This Daniel had certainly proved for him, the baron thought with grim satisfaction. He had never expected the man to put up such a fight and whatever gods that watched over this world be damned, that had both excited and terrified the scientist in him. Oh, he had taken his precautions when dealing with the archeologist, that much he could give himself credit for, but he had still put too much weight on his apparent submissiveness. Alexander had always thought himself an excellent judge of character and humans had proved themselves extremely predictable creatures time and again, but none of this seemed to apply anymore when it came to Daniel.

He finally ceased in his endless pacing and sat down in front of the fire with a resigned sigh. He wondered vaguely if he should have simply invited Daniel to join him for a cup of tea instead of leaving them both to mull over their restless thoughts alone.

_Then again,_ Alexander thought bitterly, _he has even more reason to detest my company now._

And with that, he continued his pacing once again.

* * *

Daniel was late to awaken. His eyelids felt heavy to open, his whole body limp as though boneless, and it took him several moments to gather his surroundings. His sleep-clogged brain was slow to respond, and he wondered blearily why he felt so thoroughly miserable, why was it that this dull, throbbing ache settled over his body immediately as he pushed himself to sit upright on the bed.

One sleepy look at the bedside table revealed a familiar glass jar of lotion, and he blinked once, slowly. "Oh. _Oh,_ " was all he managed and he buried his face in his hands once again, yesterday's events finally managing to break through the defenses of his drowsy mind. "Oh, my God," he groaned, and his rear throbbed dully as though in reminder. His face felt rather warm, embarrassment quick to catch up with him. He dropped his hands to his lap, letting his eyes dart around the room, but nothing registered as particularly odd or out of place. Alexander's coat was still in a messy bundle on his chair in front of the writing desk, and the sight did nothing to lift Daniel's spirits; he would have to go and return that later and, heavens have mercy on his pitiable soul, thank Alexander for borrowing it in the first place.

As if he didn't feel humiliated enough already as it were.

He dressed in silence, spending several frustrated moments trying to find a clean enough shirt from his trunk to replace the one Alexander had ruined the day before. Of all his remaining possessions, aside from the tattered remains of his journal, he was most particular about his clothes. Not that he had ever been one to care all that much for fashion or that the situation even called for a proper wardrobe, but the items he had brought along to Prussia had been few to begin with, and his hasty (and altogether too brief) return to London from the expedition had not truly presented him with a chance to commission any new garments from his tailor. Once upon a happier time the mere thought of the price of a new wardrobe might have given him nightmares, but now such a common thing seemed a luxury, even if he'd have had to pay an arm and a leg for it.

He glanced into the mirror, checking his reflection. The mirror was cracked from one corner, a small piece of glass missing from it, but otherwise it had escaped rather unscathed from the demolition of the castle. Daniel judged himself to look smart enough, his clothes plain but at least they were clean and smooth and free of coal dust. There was no denying that his clothes had become rather ill-fitting in the past months, however. His appearance could only be described as peaky, and the waistband of his trousers had never been so loose that he needed to give up the suspenders as a bad job and resort to a belt lest the trousers fall all the way to his ankles and trip him up in the stairs. A heavy sigh, one last glance into the unforgiving mirror. He'd not been this skinny since he had been a boy. That sentiment alone was more than depressing enough.

His journal lay open on the desk, its pages untouched for a few days. Daniel carefully leafed through what he'd written and tossed the book back amongst the papers. He had been much too exhausted in the past days to write a single line, and he rather wondered whether his hands would have even stopped trembling for long enough for him to put anything on paper. _Most likely not,_ Daniel thought glumly, gathering the red velvet jacket under his arm and setting out of the bedroom. The fact that Alexander had not disturbed his slumber nor even attempted to summon him for breakfast or work in the morning was most unnerving, he decided, and to further his bewilderment, he found a small note pinned to the guest room door as he entered the hall.

_'Daniel',_ it read, _'once you have awoken and judged yourself reasonably well-rested, I'd like to ask you to join me for brunch. You shall find me in the study.'_

Alexander's signature was altogether quite unnecessary for Daniel would have recognized his neat, slanting handwriting anywhere, and who else would be leaving him notes in the castle, anyway? He carefully removed the note from the door and folded it into his pocket, frowning as he pondered on the fact that the baron had chosen to leave him a note instead of simply barging into his mind and terrifying him awake.

And not for any price in the world would he have admitted that he felt more well-rested than he had in months, and that his hands had abandoned their usual tremour as he wrenched open the study door.

* * *

”Daniel, good to see you’re up.”

He had found the baron sitting in the largest library room in the study with a laden tea tray beside him on the couch. Daniel closed the door behind him, out of habit more than real need, but didn’t move closer until Alexander beckoned him to, one pale eyebrow raised.

“Do come here and sit down, if you please,” he suggested, gesturing the empty place on the tea tray’s other side. “I was hoping you’d enjoy a bit of brunch with me before we set aside the pleasantries and have to put our minds into the day’s work.”

Daniel gave him a quick, wary glance but did as he was asked, approaching him slowly and sitting down stiffly on the very edge of the couch. He offered the velvet jacket wordlessly to Alexander, his face feeling rather warm. He didn't look up from his shoes and to his relief the elder did not press the point, simply taking the jacket without questions and setting it aside on an empty chair.

“I have been thinking,” Alexander said finally, pouring tea into an empty cup and passing it to Daniel, who took it without looking at the baron. “We have managed to get the elevator machinery to a point where I no longer require assistance to get it into working condition.”

Daniel said nothing, pouring a dash of milk into his tea and stirring it dispiritedly. He would have preferred to eat in the dining hall, the long table at least giving him an excuse to put some distance between himself and the baron.

“I know you are as tired as I am of being cooped up inside of the machine room, where we cannot even see daylight,” he continued, glancing briefly at Daniel. “I thought that perhaps we should try and attempt to salvage as much of the archive wing as we can. As it happens I am rather fond of my library, and if I remember correctly, you used to be rather fond of that part of the castle yourself.“

The Englishman nodded, stubbornly staring into his tea. Getting to the archives would require a journey throught the refinery, something he did not look forward to in the least, but getting out of the machine room and away from the creaking and hissing of the pipes would definitely be an improvement. He was quite sure he had inhaled more than a lifetime's worth of coal dust already.

“I am sorry about yesterday,” Alexander said softly, pouring himself more tea. “Regardless of what stands in our contract, I believe I overstepped my boundaries with that punishment, and for that, I apologize. You do _not_ have to accept my apology,” he added, correctly interpreting Daniel's silence. “I simply wish to impress upon you that I acted upon a whim and without consideration for your feelings, and I do regret it. I still require your help, however, and I would like to ask for your assistance in our next task, if you feel up to it. We do not have to start today, and you can rest however much you need to until we set to it.”

The kindness of the request took Daniel by surprise. He cast a quick glance at the baron from the corner of his eye, looking away immediately when their eyes met. “I wouldn't mind working in the archives,” he said quietly after a long pause, taking a slow sip of his tea. “It would be a pleasant change from trying to comprehend how your machinery works.”

“I rather thought so myself,” Alexander admitted. He pushed the tray closer to Daniel. “Try the biscuits, Daniel. You need to eat something; you're much too thin nowadays and it does not become you.”

The brunette managed a small smile. He could not remember the last time he had smiled, and his muscles felt stiff from disuse. “I had no idea my appearance bothered you so, sir.”

“I find it hard to overlook the fact that you look nothing short of malnourished. I can hardly pride myself on being a good host if you are looking like that.”

“Of course,” Daniel replied, the stiffness of his shoulders easing slightly. He took a biscuit and ate it slowly, and to his amazement he realised how hungry he was. His stomach growled quietly.

“See?” the baron asked. Daniel laughed and took another biscuit.

* * *

The archives had gathered even more dust since Daniel's last venture there. The floor in the main hall was wet, a large puddle of water directly underneath where the roof had fallen in. It smelled of rot and decay, and the wet carpets were covered in grayish green spots of mold. Most of the windows had been smashed into fine powder that cracked unpleasantly under their shoes.

Alexander tended to the candlesticks that had survived somewhat undamaged, lighting the hall to his best ability. Cobwebs hung from the old candle stubs, glittering eerily in the feeble light. “And this used to be such a handsome part of the castle in better days,” the baron sighed, somberly taking in the state of the place. In better days, it had even hosted parties; it felt a lifetime ago since he'd entertained guests in these hallways, and that was indeed more or less how long ago it had been, too. “We will have to throw away the carpets lest the floor starts rotting too, and the roof needs to be fixed as soon as possible.”

“Do we have the materials we need for fixing something that big, I wonder?” Daniel asked with a frown. “And how are we even going to get up there?”

“There is a secret passageway a little further in the archives that takes you to the roof,” Alexander replied. “It has been used for repairs for a long time.”

“I am not sure it's safe to go up there. Judging by the state of that hole, I'd wager a guess that the roof is not very stable. We've had so much rain that the planks must have started to rot already.”

“I'll take care of that personally, Daniel. It's not the first time I've had to repair the roof on my own,” Alexander said, adding kindling to the dusty fireplace. The logs had remained quite dry in the confines of the stone fireplace and they started burning very quickly, aided by cobwebs, though they smoked bitterly. Alexander coughed, getting back up on his feet. “Could you take care of getting the carpets and all this debris out of here while I am on the roof?”

“Of course, sir,” Daniel nodded, rolling up his sleeves. “Where shall we dispose of all this, though?”

“Let's use the wine cellar for that, shall we? It should have enough storage space, and there isn't anything left there that we need anymore, after all.”

It was hard, tedious work. Daniel's back complained when he carried the heavy, wet carpets one by one down the stairs into the wine cellar and his arms strained with the weight of the broken planks and glass shards that he'd crammed into empty crates, but there was something oddly satisfying about putting his entire being into hard, manual labour. Above him he heard the creaking of wood and the occasional banging of a hammer, and he knew that Alexander had managed to get himself on the roof. He vaguely wondered if it was entirely safe for the older man to be up there all alone and if he would truly be able to take care of such a large task on his own, but he did not voice his doubts. Every now and then the baron would yell through the hole in the ceiling and alert him to back away from underneath it as he threw down the remains of broken and rotten planks.

It was nearly nighfall when the baron had managed to seal the hole for good, and Daniel had had to bring more firewood to the fireplaces to continue working. Of all the places in the castle, he'd loved the archives the most; he could have spent days and days lost between the tall bookshelves, reading everything he could get his hands on regardless of the subject. It saddened him to see the place in shambles, but admittedly getting rid of the debris and broken objects had improved the corridor's condition considerably. Once they'd repair the window panes it might even be enjoyable to spend time there again. He couldn't help but feel slightly more cheerful at the thought. He did not enjoy working on the elevator machinery and his own room had a permanent sense of gloom about it, though it was one of the only places where the windows had remained undamaged, thus keeping the room quite warm.

Alexander finally descended to the main corridor, the front of his jacket heavily stained and arms laden with a heavy toolbox. “That should do it,” he said, looking very tired indeed. “We'll need to get to repairing the windows tomorrow to make this wing habitable, but now, we are both tired and hungry. I daresay a proper dinner is in order.”

“Yes, sir,” Daniel answered, his stomach growling appreciatively. As much as he'd started to hate potatoes after eating them for weeks, he was quite willing to eat almost anything right now.

Alexander set down the tools on a stool in front of the dust-covered piano, covering it with a cloth. “You've done a good job today, Daniel. I'll arrange for dinner to be ready in two hours, so take a bath, get changed into something clean.”

For once, he did not need to be told twice.

He soaked in the hot water for a good, long while, glad to get the stink of rotting wood off himself. After getting up he used the still warm bath water to wash his working clothes briefly, setting them to dry by the fire. Keeping the few clothes he still had in good condition was something that felt important, especially when faced with the enormous task of salvaging the remainders of the archive wing.

As he had anticipated, the baron delegated most of the physically vexing tasks to him, which Daniel did not mind in the least. Physical labour came with the welcome side effect of him often being too exhausted to remember his dreams at all, and as he watched Alexander painstakingly remove the remaining pieces of old window panes with a chisel before replacing them with new ones, he decided he'd rather spend his days carrying boulders and debris instead. Repairing the windows was a slow, arduous task that required precision and skill, and Daniel could only marvel at how Alexander even knew how to do it – surely he would normally commission a glazier to take care of such a difficult task?

“I have not allowed many outsiders into Brennenburg for a long time, Daniel,” the baron explained while carefully inserting another pane into its place. “I have needed to learn to take care of tasks such as this on my own, lest I wanted to risk the villagers discovering my work and my servants.”

“But surely this is a lot of work for one man to take care of alone,” Daniel said, frowning.

“It has become significantly easier in the past twenty years. Acquiring suitable glass was much more vexing and much more expensive before your kin developed more advanced ways of producing glass.”

“I suppose so,” he said, still watching Alexander's hands carefully. It was difficult not to be impressed by his sheer dedication, even over such a mundane task. The man showed such concentration in everything he did. Once upon a time this had been something that had greatly impressed Daniel. “Do we even have enough glass to repair all these windows?”

“Not quite,” Alexander answered, wiping his brow. “We will have to simply board the rest up with wood, but there should be enough left for the repairs of this corridor, at least.”

With new window panes in place and with fires crackling merrily in the fireplaces, the archives had become a much more hospitable place to be. Once or twice they even enjoyed their evening tea sitting in front of a fire instead of returning to the dining hall, the both of them with books on their laps, lost in thought. It reminded Daniel of the brief time he had spent in these halls with Alexander, believing the man had his best interests at heart, of the evenings they had spent sitting just like this, deep in conversation or debating over the latest triumphs of science and modern literature. If he closed his eyes for a moment and forced himself to forget, he could almost imagine this was just one of those evenings. Almost – had it not been for the lack of easy conversation and laughter that had once filled these halls with human voices. All that had been replaced by damp, cool air, and the silence between them was as heavy as lead whenever they stopped discussing the day's work. It bothered Daniel more than he cared to admit even to himself, and he suspected it bothered the baron, too, for he left Daniel to work alone on the pretext of having more pressing matters at hand elsewhere more and more in the coming days.

For nearly a week, Daniel found himself left virtually alone to tend to the archives, and he saw very little of Alexander apart from taking breakfast with him every morning. Now that they had a good supply of firewood and the heat of the fire did not evaporate through broken windows, it had become as close to cosy as possible in the castle's current state. Daniel sought refuge from one of the smaller library rooms to write his journal there almost every evening, sitting in front of the crackling fire instead of returning to his rooms when the day's work was done.

Every now and then he slept throught the night undisturbed; those were the days when he loved the archives and the solitary haven they now provided him. Throwing himself into physical labour was the best he could do for himself, exterting himself as much as possible to drive away any nightly terrors. The tiresome tasks became fewer as time passed, however, and more often than not he began finding himself relapsing back into nightmares where he plundered through endless, dark corridors, the sound of advancing footsteps loud in his ears and angry hands reaching for him from the dark. Those mornings he would wake up drenched in sweat and trembling, and his sleepless eyes would make monsters out of the dancing shadows on the walls cast by the firelight. Those days, he'd feel endlessly trapped under the heavy stares of the towering shapes in the dark corners of the room.

It was late on one such evening when the baron interrupted him filling in a new diary entry to announce that elevator was working again and that they should move their work downstairs for the time being.

"To the dungeon?" Daniel asked, his quill going still in the middle of his writing.

"And below," the baron answered, laying down a tray of supper on the table beside him. "The food in the storage upstairs is running out, and there are other valuable things I would like to attempt to salvage, if at all possible."

"I see." His hand shook visibly as he attempted to continue writing.

"Daniel?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Please look at me."

The younger man laid down the journal, gazing up expectantly. His eyes still flickered around nervously, not quite meeting Alexander's. Perhaps it was just a trick of the firelight, but did the shadows beneath his eyes look deeper and darker again? His cheeks appeared sunken, the curve of his cheekbones unnaturally sharp in the dim glow. The baron hesitated ever so slightly before speaking again.

"Do you feel up to this, Daniel? Do you think you are ready to return downstairs?"

The brunette shrugged, picking up a cup from the tray. "It does not matter to me one way or the other," he replied with a colourless voice. "But I am running out of things to do up here on my own, so perhaps a temporary change of scenery would be welcome."

"You haven't been joining me for dinner at all lately," Alexander said. He could hardly keep the tone of accusation out of his voice.

"You have not been summoning me for dinner recently, so I assumed it was alright if I dined on my own."

The elder nodded. "I thought it best to give you some time alone if you did not wish for my company. I did not want to pressure you unnecessarily when you can manage the work up here on your own."

"How very kind of you," Daniel said, closing his eyes and taking a long draught of his tea. Still the baron remained standing where he was, watching him closely.

"May I sit down?" he asked quietly. Daniel considered this for a moment without opening his eyes, then nodded slowly. "Thank you."

They ate quietly for a long while, the silence interrupted only by the occasional clinking of china. Though the bread was going slightly stale, the meal was still quite fine for their current circumstances; the roasted potatoes, eggs and ham were as good as ever, despite them having run out of seasonings several weeks before. They no longer had cream nor milk to go with the tea, but neither of them mentioned it. A warm drink was still a welcome sight after a long day of tiresome chores in the drafty hallways.

Alexander watched the younger man from the corner of his eye, his restlessness quelled slightly by his appetite. Tired though he looked, at least he was eating properly. It was not quite enough for him to put on some weight, something he so obviously needed, but at least he was not getting any thinner anymore.

The baron added another sugar cube into his tea, stirred and said, "have you been sleeping well lately, Daniel? I cannot fail to notice that you appear quite tired."

The brunette did not respond his eyes staring into the depths of his cup. He looked curiously frozen, and Alexander was certain he was lost in some deep, dark place of his mind; nothing in his body language suggested he had even heard the baron speaking. “Daniel?” Alexander observed his carefully, then reached out a hand to softly touch his shoulder. He started violently, tea spilling over his fingers. He cursed under his breath, setting down the cup and hastily wiping his hands on his vest.

“Careful, careful,” the baron hissed, quickly withdrawing his hand. He reached into his pocket and offered the younger man a handkerchief. “I haven't seen you this distracted before. What is it?”

“Nothing,” Daniel mumbled, drying himself off. “Just lost in thought.”

“Have you been having nightmares again?”

“What else,” he sighed, handing back the handkerchief. “What is it that you were saying?”

“It was nothing important,” the elder said, frowning. “Are you quite sure you'll be able to handle venturing downstairs? If you haven't been sleeping properly, it might be the best to...”

“It's fine, sir,” Daniel insisted. “Truly. So when do we start?”

“Tomorrow morning. We will begin immediately after breaking our fast.”

All things considered, Alexander thought grimly, it might be for the best to keep a close eye on the younger man.

* * *

The elevator creaked ominously, then started moving downwards with an almighty lurch that made them both reach for something for support. The single lantern that they had brought with themselves was hardly enough to light up the small, confined space in its entirety, but Daniel's eyes were fixated upon it, the tiny flame that felt like the last anchor to sanity he had left today. He had assured Alexander that returning downstairs, into the torture chambers, was alright by him, but he had a hunch neither one of them believed he was truly alright with this. He felt stretched apart and frail, like a garment slowly coming apart from the seams. _Keep your eyes on the light,_ he told himself firmly, repeating it like a desperate mantra in his head. _Just keep your eyes on the light and don't look around no matter what you hear – or think you hear._

He could feel Alexander throwing furtive glances his way, but he firmly refused to acknowledge them. He was too far gone to start believing now that the baron cared, after everything he had done. _He's not even human,_ Daniel reminded himself. _Just an uncaring beast. A monster._

_Then what does that make you,_ whispered the voice in his head, its quiet purr traveling up his spine and making him shiver uncontrollably. _Why do you think you are any better than him after all you've done?_

_I never had any choice,_ he thought desperately to no one in particular.

_Despicable creature. Demon. Kinslayer._

_Please stop it,_ he prayed, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to will the voices to shut up. It was a losing battle, and he knew it. They never obeyed him any more than the shadows warping around him did.

_It was not him who drew out that monster in you,_ the voices taunted, their laughter mirthless and unforgiving. _It was all you, you, you behind every crack and strike and slap, and you know you cannot deny it. It was your hand that turned the wheel, your hand that raised the whip to strike. Kinslayer. Murderer._

Daniel said nothing, his teeth gritted tightly together.

_Murderer._

“Daniel?”

He opened his eyes, startled to find the elevator had stopped moving. Alexander was already outside, looking back inquiringly at him. The torchlight made him look almost ghostly down here in the dungeon.

“Are you alright?”

Daniel swallowed, forcing himself to flash a small smile. He rather suspected it came out looking more like a grimace. “Yes,” he replied, his voice surprisingly steady. “I don't particularly enjoy riding this thing, if you must know the truth.”

“Ah,” the baron said. “Experiencing motion sickness?”

“Just a little bit. I feel better when the ground underneath me is not moving.”

It wasn't entirely a lie, thought Daniel. He had never liked the elevator in castle Brennenburg, a noisy, metallic cage that rattled and shook with the effort of moving and made him feel claustrophobic. It looked even less sturdy now, after having fallen down and nearly killed him once already.

Daniel stepped out after the baron, holding the lantern higher. Even now, the walls gleamed with moisture; the red stone looked almost as though it was bleeding, the puddles of water gathered on the floor almost black in the faint light. He felt sick just looking at it. The humidity was already pressing against his skin through the fine linen of his shirt, and he knew he'd be drenched in cold sweat before long.

“Let me take the lamp,” Alexander offered, stretching out his hand.

The Englishman shook his head. “That won't be necessary. I know the way.” The baron pretended not to notice how his grip on the handle tightened, whitening his knuckles. He stepped out of the way, letting the younger man take the lead.

“Very well, then. I shall be right behind you.”

He thought he would have known the way even in pitch darkness, and, indeed, he did. Keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the lantern light, he fell into an easy step down the dark corridors. He had walked this path so many times before that he felt like stepping back in time, oddly detached from his sense of self. Quite like following in someone else's footsteps, he thought, watching someone else's progression through a very narrow tunnel. Their footsteps echoed over and over again in the damp corridors, and Daniel thought the sound of that alone was enough to make him feel dizzy. The sounds seemed magnified in the darkness, each of them pounding against the inside of his skull – he was quite sure it would build up into a proper headache before long.

His fingers curled around the cold metal of a gate and wrenched it open. Once, long ago, it seemed, he remembered his hand on the cold, damp metal, the fingers of his other hand tightly gripped around a human arm that twitched under his touch, its pleas to be released falling on deaf ears. How strong those hands must have been, he marveled vaguely, so strong to have subdued a human body with its muscles and nerves all concentrated on fight and flight. Somewhere deep inside he recalled those hands had been his, work-hardened and locked in cold determination, but it felt as though they might as well have been someone else's entirely. Whatever strength there had once been in those arms was there no more; no more strength to fight back. In some absurd way, he had taken the place of his own prisoners in these accursed hallways.

_Kinslayer._

Perhaps this was his punishment.

_Murderer._

He knew Alexander was calling for him to slow down, to wait for him, but he had no control over his feet anymore. The hands in the darkness beckoned for him to come closer, to pick them, oh, pick them, let them be chosen this time around, the unworthy ones, the shameless ones. They clutched at his ankles through the bars of their cell doors and their dark, abandoned corners, their outstretched hands clawed at his clothes and tore him to them, _to them._

“Daniel, will you wait up!”

A hand closed around his upper arm and forced him to turn around brusquely. Alexander stared at him, out of breath and his eyes angry slits. “What on earth is the matter with you?” he asked, taking the lantern from him.

The Englishman smiled, and it chilled Alexander to the bone. “We are almost there now.”

“Yes, I know that. Stand back and stay close to me now. I'll lead the way.”

His eyes gleamed like steel in the torchlight, cold, sharp and bright like a knife.

“Yes, sir.”

* * *

There was no way to access the Choir any longer; the corridor leading towards it had collapsed entirely, spilling rocks and debris over the floors. When they passed what still remained of the staircase leading upstairs, Daniel tried not to look at the place where Agrippa had once been suspended. He felt a pang of remorse when he thought of the man, his hopes of ever reaching the other side lost, lost because he, Daniel, had failed to get him through the portal. He wondered grimly if Agrippa's soul had been released of its connection to the severed head when the ritual had failed, causing the chamber to collapse on them; he could only pray it had, because the alternative was unbearable. He could not say the man had been a friend to him, no, but a comfort, a companion of sorts, certainly, and he could not help feeling responsible for his fate.

He would never stop owing them, he realised, not Agrippa for his guidance, nor Weyer, though he'd never personally met him, for his research. At one point in time, however briefly, those two had held all the answers.

If only he had not failed in this one, crucial task.

The air down in the Transept was even more humid than what it had been in the dungeons. Through some miracle, most of the area had remained surprisingly undamaged – the staircase leading to the small office upstairs had collapsed, bringing parts of the office itself down with it, but the side chambers had remained accessible. It was darker here than it used to be. Daniel assumed that the windows had become blocked thanks to most of the Chancel collapsing and raining down debris to keep out the feeble light that had once illuminated these chambers. He found he did not much miss it; the ghastly blue light had done nothing to add to the pleasantness of the area.

Still, they had to watch their steps. The cages hanging from the ceiling had, for the most part, come down, and every now and then more loose stones would fall down.

“We will have to bring many more torches if we want to get any work done down here,” Daniel said, examining the vast outer hall. “I can hardly see where we are going.”

“Indeed,” the baron agreed. “There is only so much we can do here without risking the entire roof collapsing on us, but we might be able to recover at least some of the instruments before retreating upstairs.”

“We're not going to remain here?”

“There is very little for us to do here,” he explained. “I merely wish to try and recover some of the more valuable instruments. This area is much too unstable for us to remain here any longer than we have to.”

Daniel said nothing. He had never found being underground unpleasant in the way many others might; an archaeologist was expected to enter unstable underground passages occasionally when something of value was found, and more often than not it had filled him with mounting excitement instead of fear. Collapses happened on occasion and he recognised the risks without dwelling too much on them.

But this was no cave or tomb, long since vacated by people remembered by no one in living memory. The cages that now lay empty on the dusty floor had once been occupied by writhing, trapped flesh. His hands had once been so eager to open those latches, picking those ready for the reaping. He bent down to run his hands across the bent metal, feeling the broken spikes under his fingers. There was still dried blood in the joints, caked on the metal straps. He shuddered, and the limbs beneath his hands begged for release.

With a jolt, he sprang back to his feet. He blinked and the room went in and out of focus for moment, and he stared down at the cage with confused eyes. Nothing but rusting, jagged metal, cold and unyielding and empty. No wailing mouth asking for his mercy, no body broken by his hand. Daniel inhaled sharply, starting after the baron's retreating back.

What Alexander was hoping to retrieve from this place, he could not fathom. All around them were broken objects and debris – a large wooden beam had fallen down and pierced the floor in the chamber holding the Judas' Cradle, the instrument barely accessible behind a pile of rocks. Daniel stared at the object, watching with his mind's eye how a figure was lowered down upon it and raised again, back and forth, back and forth, until his head hurt. It was decidedly strange to see it abandoned like this, just a piece of wood and rust now.

Alexander only briefly searched the room, not daring to linger any longer than necessary. The roof had partially caved in, looking like it could rain even more rubble down on them. When they wrenched open the door to the next chamber, the bent metal complaining at this sudden disturbance, they met more or less the same sight; less debris, perhaps, but a heavy layer of earth and dust lay upon every inch of the room. The blood stains on the floor were indistinguishable now, the drain clogged with damp soil. Daniel inhaled deeply, but the scent of blood had disappeared; washed away by either the damp or the soil, he did not know which. The old saw in the corner could have merely been a carpenter's tool, weather-beaten and rusty. There Alexander knelt down, feeling around the floor for something until he managed to extract dampened papers from beneath the dust.

The Englishman watched him quietly, holding the lantern high enough to cast some pale light into the room. It was long after that the elder sighed, carefully folding the documents into his pocket.

There was very little else they managed to find that day. An odd piece of paper here, another one there. A mouldy notebook that had fallen down when the upstairs office had collapsed. Alexander gathered them all with something akin to reverence, speaking very little and explaining even less. Finally, when the silence in the Transept was becoming almost too pronounced to bear and Daniel walked among the empty cages as if expecting for something to spring out of them, the baron suggested they return upstairs for the day.

That night, Daniel dreamt of drowning, and awoke clutching at his throat.

* * *

They spent ( _wasted,_ in Daniel's opinion) the next two days attempting to clear up the rubble of the fallen staircase, picking up whatever small objects had survived the demolition of the upstairs office. Their search did not yield results, unless you counted the odd paper here and there – and indeed, Alexander seemed to do just that.

“What are we even looking for in here?” Daniel asked on the third day of their search. He wished they could just have more light; the few torches they had lit up in the torture chambers did not offer as much light as he would have liked, and the shadowy corners made him feel trapped. The baron was sitting down on a rickety old chair with the few papers they had managed to find, unresponsive and lost in his own thoughts as he leafed through them. Daniel watched him expectantly, clearing his throat when no answer came.

Alexander seemed to come out of reverie, looking up at the Englishman as though surprised to see him there. “I beg your pardon?”

Daniel bit his lip and closed his eyes, trying to keep his temper under control. “I merely wondered, what are we looking for here? There is nothing of value that we have been able to find as far as I can tell… sir,” he added hastily. 

“Nothing of value, except for my research,” the baron said curtly. “Perhaps it seems of little importance to you, but I spent several hundred years working on this.”

“But what good is it for us now? Surely we should focus more on food, water, warmth…”

“We have a reasonable amount of food and fresh water available for now,” Alexander answered shortly, returning to his reading again. Daniel slammed his fist against the wall and the noise echoed in the confined space.

Alexander looked up again, frowning.

“What on earth is the matter with you nowadays?” he asked pointedly.

“Oh, nothing,” the younger asked scathingly. “I'm positively beside myself to be trapped down here with your precious _research_ and these empty chambers for company.”

The baron continued to frown at him, then, quite suddenly, he got to his feet, pocketing the papers.

“What is it, Daniel? You've been increasingly irritable in the past days.”

The Englishman did not answer immediately. He paced around the room, unable to stand still. The restlessness he felt down in these chambers seemed to have increased hundredfold suddenly. “I am not sure,” he said testily. “I cannot seem to collect my thoughts.”

“Is it your nightmares?” the baron asked. “There should still be some laudanum left in store if—”

“I do not want any,” the younger man snapped.

“I have told before that you are free to return upstairs if you do not feel comfortable down here.”

“There isn't a single room in this place that would put me at ease.”

“You seemed much happier working in the archives,” the baron said. “If you would prefer we take our work back there—“

“That's not it!”

He was not aware of shouting, but his chest was falling and rising rapidly and his face felt rather warm. The room swam sickeningly in his eyes and he took a deep breath, trying to even his breathing.

“They won't leave me alone,” he said brusquely. “No matter where we go, no matter what you have me do, they follow me and taunt me, they speak to me from the shadows, and I can't get them to leave.”

The elder took a step towards him, and his face was creased with worry. “You have been having hallucinations again?”

“If you want to call them that.”

“I thought they had ceased since we ended our work in the machine room,” Alexander said. “You seemed almost... normal, for the time being.”

Daniel closed his eyes, brows furrowed as though remembering something unpleasant, and it was a while until he spoke again. Every word seemed to cost him a tremendous effort, and his voice shook slightly. ”After you gave me that... spanking, the voices fell quiet for a time. I hurt, but I was able to sleep. I was able to eat. And they did not hound me for a while.” He swallowed, and a deep flush settled on his cheeks. “I kept hearing your voice in my head, telling me to breathe, and I could cling to the memory of the pain. As long as I hurt, I felt clear-headed in a way that I had no longer thought possible.”

Alexander merely observed him, not daring to interrupt.

“Did you not wonder why I looked you in the eye again?” Daniel asked, his eyes still closed.

“Yes,” the elder answered quietly. “You had every reason to detest me even worse than before after what I did, but it seemed to draw you out of your shell instead of pushing you further away. Yes, Daniel, I wondered, I wondered more than you may even realise.”

Daniel opened his eyes and held Alexander's gaze for a long while, his expression unreadable. “You did what I had deemed impossible, and granted me peace of mind. I was grateful. However little you may deserve it, I was truly grateful. I felt like I could breathe again.”

“But it did not last for too long, it seems.”

Daniel shook his head, slowly pacing towards a cabinet in the corner of the room. He ran his hands tentatively over the heavily stained surface, almost absent-mindedly mapping the scratches with his fingertips. “But you taught me something valuable about the nature of pain, something I was foolish to ignore in the first place.”

“And what was it, Daniel?” The baron's voice was a mere whisper.

“That if applied with restraint and in the correct doses, the process can be repeated again and again to reap the same bounty.”

Alexander eyed him with apprehension, watching as the younger man opened the cabinet and started examining the tools within with apparent care, pausing to consider this and that object as he proceeded. The silence between them was heavy, expectant. Alexander saw him pick up the Cat O’ Nine Tails and turn it around in his hands in the calm demeanor that suggested he was simply pondering his next step with another prisoner, considering where to direct his attentions next for the best effect.

“You want me to do it again?” the baron asked finally, Daniel’s silence filling him with unease.

“Quite right,” he replied, placing the whip back in the cabinet without looking at Alexander.

“There is hardly any need to repeat the punishment, Daniel, and no punishment should be given without a good reason.”

“I thought you would say something like that, sir,” Daniel said, hand hovering indecisively over the tool rack. “But you will find yourself mistaken there, I’m afraid.”

“Oh? Do enlighten me.”

Daniel glanced over his shoulder briefly, giving him a small smirk. “Always the tone of skepticism. One could almost think you do not trust my judgment.”

Alexander frowned. “What are you suggesting, exactly?”

Daniel did not answer him immediately. He finally extracted a long, black riding crop from the cabinet, running his fingers over the small, smooth leather tongue at its tip, and flicked it lightly in the air once. “This one,” he said, offering the crop to the baron, who stared at him in stunned silence before taking the crop very gingerly.

“Why?”

“When you gave me that... punishment,” Daniel said with some difficulty and his face flooded with colour again. “Don't get me wrong, Alexander. I hated it, I hated every second of it and hated you even more so for every single strike, and yet... I felt like I could breathe freely again. Like a heavy weight had been lifted from my shoulders for that short time.”

“Daniel, listen to me,” the baron said slowly, scrutinising the younger man with narrowed eyes. “What you're suggesting seems much too rash and much too extreme for the effect that you're looking for. No, _listen to me,_ ” he snapped impatiently when Daniel opened his mouth and looked very much like he was going to argue. “Do not take me for a fool! I saw how you recoiled from me the last time. Whatever memories that punishment roused in you were clearly highly unpleasant, and were I to take it any further, I fear we will risk considerable damage to your already unstable mental condition.”

“Sir, with all due respect,” Daniel answered, maddeningly calm in the face of the baron's anger. “This time I am _asking_ you to do this. It's not a punishment; it's a favour, and I will beg you on a bended knee if that's what it takes for you to do it.”

They glared at one another, and Alexander found that he was gripping the crop to keep his hands from shaking. For the first time in weeks, Daniel was not avoiding eye contact, and in any other situation he would have suggested the man seemed more clear-headed than he had since his arrival in Brennenburg, but he still could not suppress his own feelings on unease. He had long since accepted that the man was highly unpredictable and if he were to fulfill this wish, he could not tell if it would be for better or for worse.

“Sir, please,” Daniel pressed when Alexander merely continued staring at him indecisively. The baron shook his head, taking a step backwards, and with an exasperated smack of his lips the younger male sank to his knees, grasping a hold of the hem of Alexander's coat to hold him in place. “Please, _master,_ ” he said slowly and clearly, never breaking the eye contact.

“Daniel,” the elder began, his tone unusually hesitant, but Daniel continued staring up at him with pleading eyes, and Alexander finally quailed. “Alright. Now please let go, you'll crease my coat at this rate.”

Daniel got up, dusting his trousers, and the baron looked around in the chamber. There was no other surface to lean against than the small table in the room unless one counted the walls. He frowned, concluding that they'd have to take this into one of the other torture rooms when Daniel spoke again.

“I know what you're thinking, sir, but this room will do just fine,” he said, already unbuttoning his waistcoat. “A crop has a far better reach than your hand alone.”

Alexander turned around, looking decidedly away from him as he undressed. “Where are you going with this, Daniel?”

“You'll see.” He folded his waistcoat, shirt and trousers into a neat bundle beside the cabinet, boots leaning against the pile. “I have a request, though, if I may.”

“Oh?”

“I don't want you to touch me again.” His tone had become icy, and turning around, Alexander found him standing with his back turned to him, completely naked now. “Not with your bare hands, that is. You may use the crop however you wish.”

Alexander watched him grab the manacles hanging from the ceiling, muscles flexing as he pulled at the chain and locked it in place with practiced ease to prevent it from moving. His fingers curled firmly around the chain, testing its hold. The ghastly torchlight threw his skinny form into an even sharper relief than before and the baron forced his eyes shut when he felt his resolve crumbling again at the sight of his scars. He had already promised to do this, he reminded himself, he had done this many times before, and what was another act of torture to him of all people? “Understood,” he heard himself say, the irony of the situation never escaping him. How long had it been since he'd been the one giving the instructions in these chambers, guiding his nervous apprentice through his very first feeble attempts at torture? “Will you be comfortable in that position, I wonder?”

Daniel had the chain grasped firmly between his hands, head bowed and staring at the floor. “Comfortable enough,” he replied. “I do not like the idea of being manacled, but this should be alright.”

“I see,” the baron said after a while, stepping behind him. He quietly measured the distance between them, reaching out to touch Daniel's shoulder with the crop to see if he was close enough for proper strikes. “How many?”

“Until I tell you to stop.”

That gave Alexander a pause and he let his arm drop. “What?”

“You'll continue with the strikes until I've had enough.”

“And how would you want me to measure when you're content? Shall I judge the intensity of your screams, or decide you’ve had enough when you're raw and bleeding and all but begging for me to stop?” he asked wryly.

The younger man chuckled. “As amusing as that idea no doubt is, I am not one of your prisoners.” He fell quiet, thinking for a while. “Let's agree on a password, then, shall we?”

“Password?”

“I speak the word and you know to stop there,” Daniel said thoughtfully. “How does 'mercy' sound to you? You surely have heard that word often enough in these chambers for it to be memorable enough.”

“That is in very poor taste, Daniel,” Alexander scoffed, sounding disgusted.

The man laughed mirthlessly, his shoulders shaking lightly. “You cannot deny it fits.”

“And you are completely sure about this?”

“Yes, I am."

Daniel shuddered violently when the leather tongue of the crop teased a scar between his shoulder blades and ran down the length of his spine in one smooth movement. “Well then,” Alexander said finally and any traces of whatever reservation that still lingered on his mind were long gone from his voice, making way for nothing but iron resolve. “Let’s get started.”

Try as he might there was no preparing for the first strike, which landed straight onto his left buttock and made him hiss between his teeth. He’d barely had the time to inhale when another hit him in the back, and he tightened his grasp on the chain. _Just remember to breathe,_ Daniel told himself, and a sharp gasp escaped his lips when the crop struck like lightning and left a dull ache in its leave. Alexander considered him carefully, almost lazily dragging the crop across his back before lifting it to strike again, each touch as unpredictable as the last.

Daniel knew this technique so well that he did not even have to think about it. Alexander had instilled into him the meaning of unpredictability, of planning one’s course of action so that the victim would have no pattern to follow and no way of bracing themselves for the next strike. It played fully on the element of surprise, he knew, and the baron knew exactly how to play it to the best effect. Another strike fell on his already reddening backside, and Daniel made no effort to hold back the cries of pain that echoed effortlessly in the small space.

The baron relented, waiting for his breathing to calm down almost entirely before striking again. A couple of fast strikes that emitted a sound like a lightning bolt, and Alexander let his arm drop as he patiently waited for the pain to subside, silently counting to ten before striking again. Every time the pain flared anew just as severe, cutting through the flow of his haphazard thoughts and leaving him almost dizzy to the point where he was no longer sure how he managed to keep himself standing upright. But he felt light, oh so light, and though his skin seared and throbbed with each strike the tangle of guilt inside his chest was starting to loosen slowly, slowly, leaving behind nothing but a sense of blissful emptiness. His ears were ringing with the sounds of his own gasping and crying, drowning out whatever ghosts of his victims that still lingered in his head.

“Keep breathing, Daniel,” Alexander’s voice called to him as though from miles away, and he inhaled deeply before the next strike shook his body and wiped his mind clear of all thought.

Alexander could not tell how long they were at it or how many times he struck until Daniel finally rasped out a hoarse “mercy!” and the baron could finally let his arm drop. He was panting from the extortion and his shoulder felt unpleasantly stiff but he barely noticed it, staring in numb disbelief at the heavily reddened skin of his apprentice’s back and bottom. Sure, he had often dreamt, in the heights of his despair, of doing something very much like this, of taking out all of his feverish anger and sorrow upon this man and finding his peace of mind in the pain of another, but nothing about this scene soothed him now. His mouth felt very dry, and it was only with great effort that he managed to force himself to speak again.

“Are you alright, Daniel?”

The younger man let go of the chain stiffly, slowly flexing his arms and fingers. His back was tingling unpleasantly. “I think so,” he said after a while, leaning down to pick up his clothes. Alexander turned away from him hastily, feeling that he should at least allow him what little privacy he could. 

Daniel dressed in a light-headed daze, the aching of his skin eventually fading into dull throbbing. “We should continue working,” he said, fastening his belt again.

“No,” Alexander answered, his voice sterner than usual as he returned the crop to its proper place and closed the cabinet with a snap.

“But we are not finished down here, sir—“

“You are in no fit state to continue working, Daniel.“

“I do not need to be coddled, sir!” he started indignantly, but Alexander cut across him loudly.

“I demand you to rest, Daniel, and I will not tolerate your protests over this matter,” the baron said with a tone of finality. “Wash, change your clothes, and rest. You are to join me for supper in two hours, and if I judge you to have calmed down enough, we can continue in the archives after dining.”

Daniel still showed every sign of arguing further but decided to let it drop, simply shrugging in response. “Two hours?” he asked.

“Two hours,” Alexander confirmed with a nod, not entirely sure if he was relieved or alarmed by Daniel’s resignation. “I will meet you in the dining hall.”

“As you wish, sir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm ridiculously excited about this chapter, guys! I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> Edit 12/10/2015: sorry about the delay with the final chapter. It's in the works, but without going into too much detail, something rather unexpected has happened in my private life and thanks to it I've honestly been very exhausted and anxious recently, to the point of not being able to sleep at night. I'll get the chapter out, so no worries, but I need to take care of myself during this difficult period to ensure I'll get out of it okay. Thanks for understanding, and stay awesome!


	3. Hunger, hunger is the purest sin

Alexander kept a careful eye on the younger man all the way throught dinner that night. He had appeared right on time into the dining hall without needing to be summoned, his hair still damp, and while he remained subdued thorough the entire meal, the baron noted that there was a healthier glow upon his visage. He didn't try to force conversation, and noted with some satisfaction that Daniel was at least eating better, even taking extra slices of bread after he had finished with the main course. The feeling of unease at the pit of his stomach lessened slightly, and he found himself risking a bit more wine than usual. Perhaps he would be able to sleep better tonight; perhaps they both would.

“Sir,” Daniel said, laying down his knife and fork when they had finished eating.

“Yes, Daniel?” Alexander replied, being careful to keep his tone as neutral as possible. He couldn't help but still feel slightly wary of the other man's reactions.

“Thank you.”

The baron eyed him over the rim of his wine glass. Somehow, he was sure that this wasn't about the food. “I.... You are welcome.”

“May I be excused? I feel myself getting quite tired already.”

“Of course,” the baron nodded. He felt the exhaustion of the day settling over his body, and knew that Daniel must surely be feeling even more sore than he did. They both needed their rest. “Come and find me once you've woken up tomorrow. There is no hurry to get up early, so feel free to rest as long as you desire.”

Daniel stood up, nodding in response. “Thank you, sir. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Daniel.”

He watched the younger male leave the dining hall, the door closing quietly behind him. Alexander stared into the depths of his wine glass and wondered vaguely if he would be able to rest comfortably tonight; though the baron had been careful not to break his skin, his back must still hurt considerably. He would wake up stiff and aching the next morning without a doubt.

The thought bothered him a little too much to truly enjoy the warming effect of the wine.

Half an hour later he found himself knocking at the guest room's door. He could sense Daniel was still fully awake; although sleepy, his mind was still working, focused on something. Alexander knocked again, then opened the door slowly.

“Daniel? Are you still awake?”

He peeked into the bedroom, unsurprised to find the man sitting on the edge of his bed with a notebook in his hands. Daniel looked up, his quill pausing on the page.

“I thought you would want to retire for bed early tonight,” he said.

“I thought the same of you,” Alexander replied. “Can't you sleep?”

“I simply wanted to finish my entry first.” He folded the corner of the page and laid down the book and the quill on the bedside table. “What is it, sir?”

Alexander paced the room slowly, picking up a glass jar from the desk. He held it up towards the light. “Your back must ache after what we did earlier. If you'll let me apply some of this, it should dull the pain enough to allow you to rest properly.”

Daniel stared at him, then nodded wordlessly. The baron sat down beside him, looking away as the Englishman eased himself out of his shirt. “There is no need for you to do this, you know.”

“Perhaps not,” Alexander agreed. He poured a generous amount of ointment on his palm, rubbing it between his hands before beginning to spread it on Daniel's skin. The younger man groaned in relief. The salve felt blissfully cool against his aching skin, and the longer Alexander massaged it into his skin the more it seemed to numb the pain. His hands moved in slow, circular movements, thumbs tracing the curve of his spine and easing the stiffness of his back inch by inch. The Englishman noted, as he had many times before, that there was no trace of frailty or old age in the firm movements of the baron's hands; he had stronger hands than much younger men, and Daniel wondered if this, too, was just part of a clever disguise.

Daniel sighed, allowing his eyes to slip closed. The ointment was starting to heat up from the massage and he felt himself relaxing more thorougly than he'd done in months. The light-headedness that had spread throughout his body during the cropping was making way for irresistible sleepiness, making his limbs heavy to carry. Alexander's thumb rubbed against a sore spot between his shoulder blades, slowly and carefully easing out the tension that had formed there over weeks of hard physical labour.

“You are oddly quiet all of a sudden,” the baron said, massaging his shoulders. Daniel said nothing; he was much too preoccupied wondering how the elder's hands could be capable of hurting and healing in equal measure.

“Does it feel good?” Alexander asked, as though guessing his thoughts.

Daniel exhaled slowly, his head dipping back in pleasure despite himself. “It does feel remarkably comfortable,” he admitted quietly. He vaguely recalled having forbidden Alexander not to touch him with his bare hands hours earlier, but this, he decided, was one exception to that rule he just might be willing to overlook. Alexander's hands had moved to rub his upper arms instead and, with a faint sigh, Daniel leaned back against him, slumping against his chest.

“Daniel?” the baron asked, his hands stilling immediately.

“You needn't stop,” he replied, eyes still closed. Slowly, unsure as to what to do from this angle, the elder's fingers began carding through his hair, combing out tangles. Daniel could feel the slow rising and falling of his chest against his back, and he could not remember when he'd last been held like this by anyone, as though a child in the arms of a parent.

“You should get some rest, Daniel,” Alexander muttered into his ear. “You are falling asleep.”

He was right, of course, but it was still with some regret that Daniel finally withdrew and pulled on his shirt. Behind him Alexander stood up, replacing the jar of ointment on the desk, feeling the demand of sleep settling into his bones and wondering whether he'd be able to rest more soundly tonight. He was almost at the threshold when Daniel called after him.

“Alexander?”

“Yes?”

Daniel had already slipped under the covers, leaning against the headboard. “Would you... would you mind staying a while longer? For company?”

The baron hesitated. The Englishman was watching him almost pleadingly, and Alexander remembered what he had said earlier. _'They speak to me from the shadows, and I can't get them to leave.'_

“Of course,” he answered, forcing himself to smile. “I shall fetch myself something to read; I'll be back soon.”

Daniel nodded. Had he been less tired he may even have felt embarrassed about wanting the baron's company, but for a moment, his presence had felt comforting, and there weren't too many comforts left for him to enjoy these days.

It was only a few minutes later when Alexander returned, wearing a dressing gown and a book in his hands. He offered the book wordlessly to Daniel and he took it, watching the baron crouch down to tend the fire. The embers flared at once with fresh flames and Alexander added more logs to the fire. The room soon bathed in the soft glow of the fire and Daniel held up the book, examining the cover.

“What is this one?”

Alexander lifted the duvet and slipped beneath it, though making quite sure not to sit too close to the younger man. It was wonderfully warm in comparison to his own quarters, which tended to be drafty due to their size. “I remember you telling me that you were interested in fairy stories and folklore,” he said, taking the book from him. “If you are not familiar with the local lore yet, there are quite a few stories I think you might enjoy.”

“I think I would like that very much,” Daniel said softly, laying down with his head resting on the pillows. He let his eyes flutter shut and Alexander began to read, his mellow voice as soothing as ever. He was more used to being the one reading instead of being read to, and he couldn't help wondering if Hazel would have enjoyed these stories had she been there to listen with him. Surely she would have; she had always shared his love for stories, had been thrilled to learn to read herself. 

He was not aware of falling asleep or of Alexander leaving, but when he came to the next morning his quarters were empty and his mind quiet and free of buzzing thoughts for once, and for a second he almost wished that Alexander knew how grateful he was just this once.

* * *

Both of them were careful not to mention what had transpired in the Transept in the forthcoming days, not until they ventured downstairs again nearly a week later. The banter between them was decidedly polite and formal, even as Daniel carefully unbuttoned his waistcoat and clasped the chain between his hands once more. Ten, twenty, thirty strikes fell and he lost his count again, and only listened to the sound of his own breathing until his mind was crystal clear of all other thought. All of him ached as they journeyed back to the living quarters but he hardly paid it any notice; his mind was blissfully quiet, and Alexander watched him drift into untroubled sleep. The elder could not find it in himself to protest against the punishments anymore, only mutely accepting whatever tools the Englishman handed him and watching his skin redden again and again until he was satisfied.

The elevator floor vibrated into life under his feet again and Daniel vaguely wondered if they were alone in the castle now. It had been weeks, he realised, since he'd last seen even a glimpse of the Gatherers. Normally, though Alexander did order them to tend to their chores rather independently, he'd at least see one stumble down the hallways or hear a quiet growl in the distance – always a sign that they were there, never too far away in case they were needed elsewhere.

“What have you done with the servants, sir?” he finally asked a few days later. The evening sun had lit up the halls of the archive wing, painting the walls a glorious red and for once, the place held a piece of its old grandeour.

Alexander did not lift up his gaze from the piano, his playing continuing uninterrupted. “Why are you asking?”

Daniel observed him carefully, arms crossed across his chest. “I cannot remember seeing a single one of them in the past weeks. There were few left after the collapse, certainly, but it seems that they have all disappeared entirely.”

“I trust that you have noticed that our daily meals vary very little these days?”

“Yes, I did notice that.”

Alexander sighed. “The truth is, Daniel, that our supplies within the castle have started running out, as we knew they eventually would. Thus I have been forced to order the Gatherers outside of the castle boundaries to scavenge for food from a larger area, lest we starve to death.”

“But is that not quite risky? What if they are seen by the townspeople or the soldiers?”

“It is risky,” the elder admitted, his fingers stilling on the keys. “There are several storage houses further away from the castle where they can find us food that should not be close enough to the village for them to attract attention at this point. Or that is what I am hoping for, in any case.”

Daniel bit his lip, gazing out of the window thoughtfully. The sun had not yet started to sink below the treetops; somewhere out there, he knew, the servants were stumbling in the shadows of the surrounding woods, perhaps slowly making their way back to their master. “And if someone does notice them?”

“Then we shall have to deal with that problem should the need arise. Come sit with me, Daniel, would you kindly?”

“What for?”

The older man gestured him to come closer. “I wish to play for you, if you would be willing to listen.”

Daniel nodded, sitting down on the empty space beside the baron. Even under the coating of dust covering all but the keys it was a lovely thing, the polished wood still gleaming faintly in the light of the setting sun. “This is indeed a beautiful piano.”

“I had it specially made a countless years ago. Out of all the instruments your kind has invented, I like the sound of the piano the most; it resembles instruments from my home world that I used to play.”

He resumed playing as Daniel watched him, his fingers striking up a mournful tone. The sound echoed effortlessly in the empty space, for once driving out the endless silence of those darkened halls, and if he closed his eyes he could almost imagine they were sitting in a concert hall.

“I do not recognise this melody,” the brunette said softly. “Whose composition is this?”

“Mine,” the baron replied.

“You can compose?”

“I do have some talent on that field,” he admitted. “Music has been one of the only soothing things I've known in this wretched world during all these long centuries.”

“Did you compose music in your own world, too, before?”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I've done my best to adapt the melodies I had written at home, to make it possible to play them on the instruments known to this world.”

Daniel shivered; beautiful though the song was, there was something heart-wrenchingly sad about it that he knew would haunt him in his thoughts. “Is this a song you composed here or before your arrival?”

Alexander's eyes had slipped closed, but he continued playing in earnest, without hesitation. His fingers seemed to find the right keys on their own accord and Daniel knew without asking that he must have played this melody over and over again throughout the years until it had been etched deep into his muscle memory. “I began composing this piece some time after taking up residence in castle Brennenburg. After I had learned that I could not return home so easily.”

“You were homesick,” the younger man said, suddenly understanding. He thought of Hazel back in London, of embracing her one last time before he'd left, and the sadness that washed over him was so intense he nearly wished Alexander would stop playing immediately.

The baron nodded, still not opening his eyes. “And I still am, Daniel, just as much as I was long ago. It has never truly gone away.”

“' _My love',_ ” Daniel remembered suddenly. “Those cylinders of yours spoke of a 'love'. Who is she?”

The elder inhaled sharply and he shuddered visibly. “I never had the chance to say goodbye to her, never had the chance to explain... anything. The thought of her haunts me every day, and yet, I can no longer even recall her face or the sound of her voice. I cannot possibly put into words how much that pains me, Daniel. It is pain beyond pain.”

“I am sorry,” Daniel breathed, and this time he truly meant it.

“The means I seized to return home came with a terrible cost, as you very well know, yet it was all for naught in the end,” Alexander said. He sounded wearier than ever before; Daniel thought he had never seen anyone look so defeated. “I'm sorry I used you as I did, Daniel. I know my reasons do not excuse what I did to you nor do I expect them to buy your forgiveness – I only wish that you understand, truly understand, how far a desperate man is willing to go for his one last hope, even if it comes at the cost of another's life.”

“Was I not the same in the end?” the brunette asked. He felt as though a pit had opened at his feet, a horrible sense of a big hollow something beckoning him to fall. “Was I not, just like you, ready to buy my own salvation with anothers' blood, my guilty conscience quilled with empty explanations and excuses?”

“That is why I found it so easy to appeal to that side of you; I saw much of myself in you, and it was all the more easy to use you for that.”

Daniel shook his head. “We are both just as much to blame, Alexander. I cannot pretend that everything that happened did not happen at least partly because of my selfishness.”

“Perhaps you are right.” The baron sighed. “So much death and suffering to see her one last time, and I can no longer even remember her face.” And he let out a great, shuddering gasp and began to cry in earnest.

Daniel gaped at him, at a loss for what to say. The elder's shoulders shook with sobs, not the quiet ones of a person fighting to contain their tears but like a wounded animal, his face contorted with grief so severe he looked as though he were in physical pain. Wordlessly, the Englishman draped one arm around his shoulders, squeezing tightly, and without even knowing why, allowed the crying man to lean against him. Alexander's whole body shook uncontrollably, and he gasped for air between sobs. Daniel thought he had never seen anything so pitiful in his entire life.

It took Alexander a long time to regain control over himself, and neither of them spoke for a while. The baron dabbed his eyes with his sleeve, only vaguely aware of the warmth of the younger man's arm around him.

“I don't trust you,” Daniel said suddenly. “I _can't_ trust you after what you've done to me.”

The baron nodded. “I understand. I cannot trust you, either, not after everything that has happened between us.”

“But there is something I want you to know, Alexander.”

“Yes?”

The arm around him tightened momentarily, fingers digging into the velvet coat. “That it's not that I don't sympathise. I think I am beginning to understand your reasons.”

* * *

“I want to be bound this time.”

The words were out before he'd had the time to fully process the thought in his head. The cold metal felt soothing in his hands and he pried the manacles open carefully. They were stiff to open though it had not been too long since they had seen use and he guessed that continued exposure to the cold and moist air would soon result in rust.

“What do you mean?” Alexander asked, though he was certain he already knew what he wanted.

“Bind me with the manacles. I want to know what it feels like.”

“Are you sure you are ready for that?”

Daniel nodded. His face was inscrutable, but the baron thought he recognised the familiar steel of determination somewhere in his eyes. _Not at all unlike my own,_ he thought.

“I feel like I have been ready for a long time,” the Englishman replied. He remembered the long line of prisoners passing between his hands, and somewhere in his gut a thought stirred with mute curiousity. What they must have felt like during those gruesome days, knowing their fate was in another's hands, clinging to the one desperate hope that their executioner would just once show them mercy. It must be a disarming feeling, such utter lack of control.

Alexander opened the cabinet. “Do you want the crop again?”

“Yes, sir.”

There was a quiet purr in the brunette's voice when he answered, and the baron's hands tightened around the instrument. He could not entirely busy himself with the cabinet as the younger man undressed, and his eyes stole brief glances of pale flesh as garment after garment was shed aside. There was something in him that writhed with shame as his gaze rested on the too-familiar scars and caressed the bumps of his spine and the smooth arc of his buttocks. Still much too slender, Alexander thought; but at the very least his cheeks were not as hollow as they used to be a month ago.

He walked towards Daniel and held out his hand. “Your wrists, then, if you please.”

The manacles clicked in place easily under his fingers and he recalled vaguely that once upon a time he had dreamt about tying up the brunette just like this and taking revenge upon his bones until they cracked and gave away under the weight of his anger. He had seen so many pale arms bound by the same metal, but never once a pair that did not struggle against his hold.

“Are you comfortable?”

“Yes,” Daniel answered. The chain had been drawn high enough for him to rest his weight on it and he bowed his head, eyes closed. He shivered violently when he suddenly felt the tip of the crop sliding down his spine and the baron's voice murmuring right behind his ear.

“Do you want me to hurt you, Daniel?” he whispered, and slid the leather tongue further down.

“Please,” he choked out an answer.

“Please what?”

He swallowed. He felt like the ground was swaying, ready to throw him down the ravine opening up beneath his bare feet.

“Please hurt me, master.”

The crop cracked loudly as it landed on his buttock and Daniel whimpered.

“That's more like it,” the elder replied and raised the crop again.

The pain rose and fell in waves, lower and higher and deceptively retreating until his throat was sore. Somewhere in the back of his head Daniel thought he heard crying and he did not know whether it was him or the woman making those sounds. What a pitiful sound, he thought numbly, and the sounds rang yet more clearly. His wrists were raw from resting his weight on the cold metal and he wondered when he, too, would rise into the air beside the kidnapper, and whether his bones would give away as elegantly as hers had done.

There was something satisfying in his helpless trashing, something that clicked in place the more his mind processed that he had nowhere to run, no chance of escaping the pain. Just as sure as there had not been mercy for their prisoners the moment his hand had marked them for punishment, just as sure there was no mercy waiting for him.

_Murderer, kinslayer,_ the voices yelled at him and his voice echoed them obediently.

_I am innocent! Why won't anyone listen to me?_

The metal cuffs around his wrists were hands, forcing him on his knees even as his mouth pleaded for help.

_Please, let me go!_

Teeth bit into his lower lip and he felt a warm thread drip down his chin, slowly splattering the floor at his feet. He felt a strike, two, three, land on his skin and it was as though his back was on fire, and he could barely hear his own ragged breathing over the man's tortured cries.

_Murderer,_ the shadows whispered in a little girl's voice and the room swam before his eyes. _Who will your hand mark for slaughter next, now that there is no one left?_

The next strike fell heavily across his bruised skin and filled his head with white noise. His knees buckled, and the voices cried their approval in unison.

“Myself,” he sobbed. “Please, let it be me!”

Slowly, she nodded, and the pain cleaved his body in two.

* * *

Warm water trickled down his back, making his raw skin sting. Daniel hissed between his teeth as the elder carefully cleaned the welts with a wet rag, washing off the dried blood and leaving his skin pink and aching.

“You should have told me to stop earlier,” Alexander chided, brows furrowed as he inspected the cuts. They were not very deep, but he knew he had used enough force for there to be bruising afterwards, and where the crop had fallen repeatedly there had been minor bleeding. “You are going to be quite uncomfortable during the following days, I am afraid.”

The Englishman shrugged. “I can live with it. Thank you for not stopping until I asked you to, though.”

“Is this truly so important for you?”

“More so than you could ever know,” he answered. The baron sighed and Daniel could almost hear him shaking his head, but the elder offered no further complaints.

“I will now apply some salve on the wounds. It will speed up the healing process and ease the aching.”

“Alright.”

He grimaced. The salve made the cuts sting and burn even worse still, and he guessed sleeping on his back would be out of the question tonight. He had come to his senses and called off the punishment only when his skin had broken and begun bleeding in several places. The pain had come much later – he was not entirely sure how he had managed the entire journey back upstairs, it was as though the previous hours were wrapped in thick white fog. Somehow, he had the most unpleasant feeling that Alexander must have personally steered him all the way to the elevator; he had only registered they had vacated the torture chambers when they had returned to the guest room.

“A suggestion, if I may,” the baron said after he had wiped his hands dry again.

“Yes?”

“The damage inflicted today was clearly disproportionate to the effect you are looking for. You need to carefully consider how you, that is to say, we, should proceed from now on, if you insist on us continuing these… _punishments._ ” He could not entirely mask his distaste on the last word, and Daniel caught his eye, smirking slightly.

“I see,” he replied. “I shall consider your words and think carefully where we should tread.”

“I would appreciate that,” Alexander said dryly. He could not help wishing that the younger man would just this once take his advice to heart instead of simply brushing it off; accustomed to bodily injuries though he was, he could not escape the feeling of discomfort he always had afterwards. In all his long years he had never, ever had a willing subject, and the thought made him feel oddly wrong-footed. Whatever submissiveness the Englishman seemingly exhibited, he had long since learned not to take it at face value.

The baron corked the glass container and made to get up, but Daniel's hand closed on his wrist before he managed so much as to step away from the bed.

“Wouldn't you read to me again tonight?” the brunette asked.

Alexander's eyes darted between his face and the hand clinging to his arm. He was not sure if the other was simply pulling his leg. “Would you like that?”

“I would very dearly like it,” he insisted. “It keeps the voices at… well, I slept better last time you read to me.”

The baron carefully pried off the fingers around his wrist, frowning at Daniel. “Are you saying that you are still hearing these voices?”

“I'm not—”

“Tell me,” he said sternly.

Daniel hesitated and turned to stare at his hands instead. “It… is of no concern.”

The bed dipped slightly as the baron sat back down. “Daniel,” he said more gently. “Please tell me. I cannot help you if you do not tell me what exactly it is that ails you.”

Daniel twisted his hands awkwardly, not really knowing where to begin, and even less where to look. This odd sense of being cared for was more alien to him than he wanted to admit. He could feel Alexander still looking at him enquiringly. It felt utterly foolish to even think such, but during that moment, he almost believed the other man cared. “It is much the same as before,” he admitted. “There are voices. Men, women. I can remember their voices; they accuse me, plead for mercy.” He took a deep breath. “They call me murderer. They taunt me and call for my blood from the shadows.”

“And is the reason you insist on these punishments,” Alexander interrupted, “, that you feel the need to repent for their deaths with your own suffering? Are you trying to get me to torment you to death, so as to seek their forgiveness in the afterlife?”

Daniel shook his head. The motion made his temples throb unpleasantly. “Before, I thought I could compensate for their suffering by killing you. One last murder, and it would all be over, blood paid with blood.”

“But it did not work out the way you had planned.”

The brunette sighed. “I can now see where I erred. It's not them I was doing it for. I simply wanted to soothe my guilty conscious, and I thought by murdering you I could wipe away my guilt. It's not their forgiveness I seek. It is my own.”

“And these punishments we administer, do they help?”

“Yes,” he whispered. Guilt flared in his gut again at the memory of leather cracking against his skin, of the tremours it sent throughout his body. Guilt, and somewhere underneath it, excitement. “More than I can describe.”

Alexander said nothing, but the look on his face told Daniel he knew what he was thinking.

“One week,” the baron said finally. “You will let your skin heal for one week, and then we will perform another punishment. You will heed my advice this time. I refuse to do too much damage needlessly.” Perhaps his scepticism had shown on his face, for the baron continued. “The effect you seek can be reached through other means, which are much less damaging. If you will trust my judgment this once, let me decide how we are to do this.”

The younger man swallowed. He felt a surge of nerves at the pit of his stomach that had nothing to do with apprehension. “Alright. Let's do it your way this time.”

“Good. Now, would you still like me to read to you?”

* * *

There was very little left of the choir area anymore. Everything beyond the entrance hall had collapsed, the passage filled with rubble. Alexander had taken one look at the mess and decided it would be senseless to try and clear up any of it. The two small chambers upstairs had remained accessible, with much less minor damages.

The flat stone table was so heavily stained with dried blood that it was almost impossible to tell it was not its original colour. The baron took his time time walking slowly around the chamber, lighting the candles lining the walls, until the room was almost bright and inviting. Daniel shivered. He was lying face down on the table, and the cold seemed to seep all the way into his bones.

“That should do it,” he heard Alexander say as another candle lit up. “Would you prefer we leave you uncuffed during the procedure, or do you want to be bound?”

“I would like to be bound, please,” he answered, flexing his fingers. The manacles on the table felt even colder than the stone table, and another shiver ran down his spine as his wrist nudged against the metal by accident.

“Very good,” the baron replied. “Then I will bound your hands now.”

Alexander forced open the manacles, grabbed his wrists one by one and fastened the metal cuffs around them. The loud click of the metal was demanding in the quiet chamber; it was enough to make his head spin already.

“I would like you to close your eyes now, Daniel.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You will use the password as soon as you feel like you've had enough.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I will stop immediately at the sight of blood or injury whether or not the password has been used. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Alexander smiled, picking up the crop from the small sidetable. “Good boy. We may begin.”

It was an odd feeling, being utterly unable to shift from his position. The first ten lashes passed in a familiar blur, and though he was lying down he felt like the ground was rocking back and forth underneath him. His voice echoed effortlessly in the small room, goaded on by the sharp slap of leather on skin, and it was not only once or twice that his cries melted into a strangled moan when the crop landed on a particularly sore spot.

He breathed heavily, anticipating another slap, but it did not come.

“Why have we stopped, sir?” he asked. Behind him, he heard the baron chuckle softly.

“Relax, Daniel. We are not done yet. You are becoming desensitised to the crop alone, and that will not do if we are to reap any price out of this.”

He could not see what the baron was doing, so he simply let his muscles relax and closed his eyes again. Soon enough, he heard the elder walk towards him, and before he had the chance to wonder what he was planning, something hot splashed across his back in narrow, scalding streams.

“ _Ahh!_ ” he cried, but the heat was already gone. His skin merely tingled pleasantly. “What was that?”

“Candle wax,” Alexander said. “It will not burn enough to do any real harm, but it will make your skin more susceptible to the crop. Prepare yourself.”

The brunette exhaled slowly through his nose, now ready for the burning sensation. It felt like a hot red current had ran down his spine and all the way to his toes, leaving behind a strange throbbing where the wax had touched his skin. The pain flared quickly, then retreated almost before he had time to register it, and he found his mind becoming clearer, his body lighter, with each dose. The wax trickled heavily down his buttocks and he could do no more than groan when the heat of it seeped into his bones.

“I think that is enough for now,” the baron said finally. He carefully cleaned away the dried wax before picking up the crop again. The smooth leather tongue ran between Daniel's shoulder blades in a soft curve, and the younger man shivered uncontrollably. “We shall continue with the lashes.”

Daniel nodded, trying to concentrate. “How many, sir?”

“As many as it takes.”

There was no time to prepare before the first slap already landed on his back, drawing a soft moan from him. His skin felt much more sore than it had from the cropping alone. It felt as though the fire on his irritated skin was tempered again everytime he received a new lash. The heat of it rose to his face and filled his head until he was sure the fire within would overflow. Another lash, and he faintly registered something hot spilling down his cheeks; a moment later he realised they were tears. One lash, two, three, and his face burned with shameful tears as he could no longer hold back the urge to lift his hips and voicelessly beg to be given more, more, as much as his body could take.

“Very good,” Alexander said calmly, lowering the crop again with a loud _slap_. He had not anticipated his suggestion to work this well, but he was pleased with the effect nevertheless. Though Daniel's skin had gained a dark, ruddy colour where he applied both the wax and the crop, there were no blisters, no cuts, no unnecessary damage caused. “You see, Daniel? Like this, you can push your body to take much more than before. Without the physical damage, it becomes possible to seek the effect you want at more regular intervals, without the need to wait for your body to recover.”

The Englishman only groaned in response.

Alexander lifted the crop, slid it across the younger male's buttock and slapped the reddened flesh again. “Am I to take it you have had enough?”

“No, sir.”

“Then what is it that you want, Daniel?”

“Ten more, please.”

“Please what?”

“Ten more swats, please… _master._ ”

The baron's eyes gleamed. “As you wish, Daniel.”

He counted four lashes until he could no longer concentrate, the fire in his bones forcing his body to curl into a ball as he cried his sins into the darkness.

* * *

It was two weeks later that the servants started wandering back to the castle without bringing anything with them from their scavenging trips.

“That's the third one this week alone,” he muttered.

Alexander walked in a slow circle around the Gatherer, inspecting the damage. One of its arms was almost severed at the shoulder joint, hanging limply at its side. A long gash ran down the length of its back, too precise to be nothing but deliberate.

This one, he knew, he had ordered even further down towards the valley, to look for food from one of the storage shacks close to the forest's edge. He'd known it to be risky; the area was close to the farming lands and the most remote settlements were within walking distance. There were very few of his servants left anymore after the Shadow's rampage, and already two others that had been sent in the same area had returned to the castle badly maimed.

He bent down to throw another log into the fireplace. Though it was a fairly warm autumn's day, sunny and still, he suddenly felt chilled to the bone. He could hardly call these random attacks anymore.

_I suppose it is only a matter of time before the villagers will follow them to Brennenburg,_ he thought grimly. It was hardly surprising; they had next to no supplies left in the castle itself anymore, nothing to sustain themselves with. Every scavenging trip towards the village was an open invitation, and he knew the rumours about the sightings of his Gatherers over the past centuries had heavily contributed to the paranoia the locals felt towards Brennenburg. The disappearance of the Zimmermann family could not have gone unnoticed, nor the fact that the total amount of disappearances in the area had increased ever since a foreign traveler had come to visit the baron several months previously.

Alexander turned his back to the maimed servant and gazed out into the golden autumn air. Down in the grounds he could only just make out a small human form sitting in the sun, and though he was too high up to truly see it, he could too easily imagine Daniel, with a quill at hand, bending over his diary.

“They know, my love. They will come. Before long, they _will_ come.”

* * *

It was the warmest day all month, Daniel mused. It was surprising how warm it still was in the sun, this late in the year, but he had been pleased nevertheless to get out into the grounds after so many weeks holed up inside the castle. The ground was strewn with fallen leaves and pine needles, and the air smelled of damp forest air. Somewhere down in the valley a river sparkled faintly in the sunlight and he marvelled at how high above the treeline Brennenburg truly was. This was the first time in months he'd left the castle at his leisure simply to enjoy the view. The light breeze on his face felt soothing, nothing like the raw November air they surely had back in London right now.

Somewhere at the back of his mind he faintly recalled the long, spiralling path his carriage had taken the day he had ridden to Brennenburg. He knew that back then, surely, he must have felt something similar to this – simple wonder that stirred deep inside his heart and roused distant memories of childhood fairytales he'd thought were to come true. On the outside, some of the castle's old beauty still remained. Ivy was still climbing up the eastern wall as it had done in August, though its leaves had long since turned brown and dry and scattered down over the dried up rose bushes.

The warmth of the sun pressed heavily through his clothes and made him drowsy. On such a day he would have taken Hazel out, even for a short while, to sit in the sun with her. He dipped the quill into the ink again, then paused with his hand in mid-air. He had not felt so calm since spring.

_'We've not seen a single one of the servants in four long days. The remaining bread is going stale, and the only other edible thing we have left now is potatoes. Alexander says nothing, but I suspect our fresh water supply will not last long, either.'_

The letters gleamed wetly on the page and Daniel waited for the ink to dry before continuing.

_'It would be terribly easy to simply walk away and leave, and sometimes I ask myself why I haven't done so though I would have the chance. I can see the same question in Alexander's eyes every day, though he says nothing of the sort. And for that I am grateful, for I do not have an answer to give to either of us.'_

Hadn't mother always told them not to take fairytales at face value, tried to teach them the warnings they carried? He thought he recalled her saying something like that, just once, when he had been very small. He wondered why their lack of supplies wasn't worrying him more. Perhaps it was very simply the fact that after all else that had happened in the past year, lacking something as mundane as food felt comfortingly normal. Starvation was a fate he could face with a peaceful mind, if it came to that. Much better than all other options.

He closed his eyes, letting a sudden gust of wind ruffle his hair. Of course, he could just walk through the gates and disappear into the woods. Leaving would be so easy, he thought, but somewhere along the way he had stopped wishing for an easy way out; if there was one thing he remembered clearly from his favourite fairy stories, it was that an easy path was more often a warning than a sign of safety. What guarantee there was that he would ever find a way out of the Prussian woods and into another town? Aldstadt was out of the question. Too many had seen him arrive. There would undoubtedly be villagers who remembered his face, the only foreigner to have set foot in this area in forever – the baron's only guest in God knows how long. If the villagers caught him, it would all be over whether or not he was anywhere near the castle.

And even if he did escape and make it to Bremen and aboard a ship that would take him to England, then what? Wouldn't there still be questions? He had no story to tell that would explain his disappearance, no tale to quench the curiousity his reappearance would stir. And what if there were no questions? Would he ever learn to live amongst other people and hide away his guilt well enough for it to never surface again, so that no one would ever learn the truth?

He tried to imagine himself settling down, a fine London house or perhaps a small cottage somewhere on the countryside, and a nameless, faceless woman holding his hand as they watched small children play in the yard. Perhaps they would even have a dog. The image felt distorted, as though something out of a dream, and then it shattered and vanished. No, he thought. He'd never be able to love, to marry, much less raise children of his own. He had seen too much. Done too much. He could never let anyone work their way into his heart and past his defences, and risk them ever finding out just who he was.

_'Perhaps it's time I stopped running away. Perhaps this time, I will choose what is right over what is easy.'_

This was one tale, one conclusion he could never tell Hazel about, but he knew she would have understood.

* * *

Everything was already in perfect order, neatly arranged to the shelves without a pinch of dust, but going over the different books kept him calm. Daniel had organised and reorganised the shelves more times than he could count, but he liked the sense of keeping himself busy with something easy and repetive. Alphabetical, by author, by the year of print – he had tried a whole number of ways to arrange all the materials left in the archives, and he believed he was learning to know each tome by heart.

Over the sound of Alexander's playing he heard distant noises. Raised voices, he thought, too far away to make out any words. They would have company before long.

The melody the baron was playing was not one he recognised, none of the other ones he had heard the man play before during all their long evenings in the archives. Every composition the elder had seemed heavy with inexplicable melancholy, but this particular piece soothed rather unsettled him. Daniel had to admit the baron had a rare gift for music; the sort that made you believe the melody lived and breathed by itself and reinvented itself over and over again, as thought the musician was the instrument for the music and not the piano.

It was beautiful beyond understanding, and he had closed his eyes without ever noticing. He let the music drown out all other sounds, ignoring the noises he knew were approaching.

“You still have the time to flee if you so choose,” Alexander said without interrupting his playing. “It is me they are after. I doubt they would bother looking for you.”

“I know,” he replied. He placed the remaining books in the shelf, perfecting his work.

“And what is your choice?”

Daniel walked next to him, quietly watching him play. He could not help admiring the dexterity of his fingers. Such skill for one so aged. “There is nothing or no one waiting for me out there any longer, Alexander. I made my decision long ago. I will stay here with you.”

“And you'd not go back on your choice, not even if I asked you to reconsider?”

“No, I would not.”

The baron nodded and kept playing. Daniel thought he heard a crash somewhere downstairs, closer than before.

“Are you not afraid, Daniel?”

“Perhaps,” he admitted softly. “But I have been afraid of much worse things in the past months. There is nothing they can do to me that would match what I have done to myself.”

“You are right, of course.” The sounds were coming closer, no longer entirely muffled out by the piano. Alexander's fingers stilled on the keys as he reached the final notes of the song, and he closed the lid carefully.

“And you, Alexander? Are you afraid?”

“Yes,” he said, getting up to his feet. “But no more than I am afraid to watch endless centuries roll by, stuck eternally in this world, forever unable to go home.”

“Then perhaps it's better this way.”

“Yes, I should think so.”

They could tell there was not much time now; the yells and shouts were coming closer, footsteps almost distinguishable now.

“Alexander?” the younger man said finally. Despite the approaching sounds the halls were much too quiet now, without the piano, and he thought the silence would start getting to him before the mob found them. “There is one last thing I want you to know.”

“Yes?”

“I can forgive what you have done, but I cannot forget it.”

The look they shared was long and stable, and during that moment Daniel knew they understood each other perfectly.

“I know,” the baron said.

Daniel turned to look at him and offered him his hand. After a second's hesitation the baron took it, grasping it tightly, and the Englishman pulled him into a one-armed hug. They stood there like that for a while, the elder clumsily patting his back, and Daniel's eyes were calm when they broke apart.

“Is this truly what you want?”

The brunette smiled, a genuine smile that reached all the way into his eyes and made him look years younger. “Yes, it is. Thank you... _my friend._ ”

Alexander's hand was still warm in his when the door to the archives burst open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it all comes to an end. I hope it was an enjoyable read; it feels odd that I've been working on this story for well over two years now, and what a story it was, too. This was an incredibly important, incredibly personal project for me, and I'm glad I was able to tell it the way I wanted to.
> 
> Sorry for the delay in getting the final chapter out! There was a certain personal crisis that needed my urgent attention, but all is much better now and things are looking up, though my fiancée and I will be moving across the country in a month so we're going to be pretty busy soon. That being said, I want to thank all of you for sticking with me until the very end! Thank you for your comments and your support; it really does mean a lot to me.
> 
> PS. I made a fanmix on 8tracks for this fic with all the music that inspired me to write this story! [Check it out and give it a listen here!](http://8tracks.com/aurasama/terms-of-submission-a-mix)


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